I have an Ortur laser unit, Laser Master 2-S2-SF(UV laser head, about 390 x 410mm travel envelope) which I have used for small parts up to now. I have a large part (about 13" diameter marking area) which incorporates a number of continuous angle markings as lines across the diameter, including the X and Y axes.
From the result I just got, it looks to me like there is an error in the alignment of X and Y axes, such that I am out of square between axes by about 0.9 degrees, which shows up at the approx 13" diameter as an offset from a machined feature of about 0.1" displacement, in opposite directions at either end of Y axis. The X-axis line is nicely centered and aligned on the machined features for the X-axis, so this is not a part rotation problem, but a fundamental geometric hardware relationship. UNLESS there is some sort of angle skew/adjust feature in the Lightburn software or the controller firmware, somehow. This is a question I’d like to ask, whether there is any such adjustment
When I set the machine up initially, I did a rudimentary check of squareness of the bottom frame (4 pieces of extrusion joined at the corners). That seemed fine at the time, still looks OK. Measuring squareness accurately between the overhead X-axis beam and the Y-axis frame looks to be a difficult project based on the space between the items involved. I have the unit mounted to an aluminum baseplate with corner brackets that capture the legs, and all of that seems “OK”. It doesn’t seem that there is any obvious hardware adjustment range in the assembly to allow for squareness adjustment. So-- anyone out there with experience or “been there done that” guidance?
No, there is none. You need to tackle this mechanically. Of course, you could do some distortion to your project graphics, but this wouldn’t make much sense since if you change your laser, you would need to touch all projects again.
Simply measure the diagonals and see if they are equal. Those diode lasers use cheap mechanics and to align them perfectly will take much time and adjustments. Also make sure your laser head points directly perpendicular to the workspace surface, that’s another common issue.
That’s covered in the “Last 10% Manufacturing” section of the manual.
One (or more!) of the screw holes in the rails or brackets is an itsy away from where it should be. Maybe it was a bad day on the manufacturing line?
So:
Loosen all the screws
Gently push the frame toward being properly square
Find the screw that’s no longer loose
File its clearance hole a little larger on the side that’s binding
Iterate until the frame is square
The screws may pass through clearance holes in a rail / bracket and tighten into a tapped hole in another frame rail / bracket. File the clearance hole(s), not the tapped hole.
That you must disassemble much of the frame to file the hole is … annoying, so when you find the first screw, you can preemptively file the adjacent holes.
I fixed the orthogonality issue by making sure the toothed timing belts were all secure and snug, then loosened the set screws (fixing timing pulleys to the common shaft) on the timing pulley on one side, and indexed the pulley to square up the guide beam that carries the laser head in X-axis. This required a few trials, but ended up working fairly well; orthogonality is now about .002" lateral displacement over the max travel.
It helps (if you have an issue like this) to be able to use a dial indicator mounted on one axis or the other to check squareness against a good square reference. The biggest question in doing that is the actual shape of the extrusions, and how they guide the moving laser carriage. You do have to make some compromises and average things out.
