After cutting a fair amount of acrylic earlier today and testing some engraving settings, I went back to cutting acrylic and suddenly ran into an issue.
I’m now getting ribs/waves along the X-axis, while the Y-axis is perfectly smooth. I’ve cleaned the mirrors and lens, tightened the X-axis belt, and lubricated the wheels and pulley, but it hasn’t helped.
There’s sometimes a crackling sound when cutting in the X direction, though I’m not sure if it’s related. The laser beam looks stable at the tube and it still cuts through fine — the problem is only the ribbing along X.
Any ideas?
First, I would locate where the crackling sound is coming from. Did you inspect the set screws on the pulley system?
If you run the file at a 1/4 of the normal speed, do the ribs disappear?
I did not except checking the pulley was functioning visually. When going very slow with the same power the problem almost completely disappears, but i suspect it is because the acrylic actually has longer time to melt and not actually solving the problem.
Check your belts. Might something in the gear or the belt
It’s clearly a mechanical issue, which can be tough to diagnose. It’s probably an issue somewhere on the Y axes, where it should be fixed and not moving for an X cut and it is.
A crackling sound could be electrical which is what the anode voltage usually makes, but it shouldn’t be related to any one axes.
