Hi all, would anyone have any idea what might be causing my laser (every 3 or 4 burns) have a bit of a melt down? I was hoping to attach the photo of the failed etch. It happens way too much, and because I am etching onto a quality stainless steel bottle, I am wasting really good product…
What happens is the laser literally has a fit. The last failed burn all of a sudden started to randomly left the design and started to burn a jagged random line off to the side on an angle. It looks like a cardiogram. The machine kind of stutters and shakes back n forth . And the sometime, returns to the etch design… Frustrating. I’m hoping to take this hobby and make it a small business - but not with this run rate.
Does anyone have any idea what can be causing this?
I don’t have an answer for you but some questions that might help others.
Does it give any error messages in the Lightburn console when this happens?
Assuming you’re using a rotary. Which one? Does it act the same on a flat surface?
Is it scanning the entire graphic when it does this or is it only scanning the text area? Is the upper part in your design or did the bottle come that way?
Upload a screenshot of your entire work area. Uploading your .lbrn2 file also may be helpful.
I whole heartedly agree, but it could also be the loss of USB communications. When I first started using my LM2, it would either stop and never restart or stop and restart lower down on the tumbler. It mostly happened when doing rotary work and only once in flat mode. For ME it turned out to be my anti-virus program starting a scan (or some Windows process) sucking up all the CPU resources (CPU usage at 100%) so that there was nothing left to service the USB comms, so it just stopped. I discovered what was going on by monitoring Task Manager while running a job. Now I disable those apps before starting an engrave and I haven’t had a problem since. Something to think about anyway.
Thanks so much guys. Yeah it’s all a bit too temperamental to rely on for any commercial use… hmm. Yes it’s on a rotary cradle. Just did another burn and it put a random burn line beside the edge of the image. Ahh. Man.
I think I’m probably going to need a better laser. Also needs to be quicker. And a dedicated laptop.
Any suggestions for a good laser you can recommend for doing quality water bottles?
I ended up replacing the motherboard on my LM2 with one from Tim Rothman (a B-N-B3) because it had an SD card slot (and Wi-Fi) and haven’t had a problem since. Ultimately, I bought a 60W OMTECH CO2 laser and couldn’t be happier with the decision. I mostly do large cutting boards, but I also engrave tumblers as well. There are lots of good products to choose from and everyone has their favorite. For instance, I’m using a home-built 3D printed rotary that’s belt driven, and it works great for me. The good thing is that most CO2 lasers have internal memory (not sure about the smaller ones like the K40), so you just dump the file to the machine and press start (which is what I do for large projects). Or you can stream it via USB or ethernet (if equipped). Good luck.
