Hi guys, I have a thunder laser 60W 600x400 laser
RDLC v5.00.35 Rudia 644xg DSP
With a chuck based rotary unit.
All is fine with RD works
All is fine with normal cutting and especially engraving which is far better than using RDworks.
However, when I use the rotary unit to engrave a 10x10mm square comes out 10x50 rectangle
the only way to get a 10x10 engrave is to make a 10x2mm drawing.
I have tried setting the steps per rotation from 100 to 100000 and it makes no difference, in RDworks the setting was 12000 for 82mm diameter objects.
Any ideas?
I would really like to purchase a license as this software gives me far better results but unfortunately, I need the rotary more than I need normal cutting, etc.
Fingers crossed it can be sorted as Iām pulling my hair out atm.
Hi Gary,
Try drawing a line that is the length of your circumference of your part you are engraving. Make your origin at one end. Put a mark on your part and adjust the steps until you start and stop at the same spot.
Itās almost certainly because you have a Thunder Laser, which uses their own special firmware. The rotary works different with them. Can you tell me how old your machine is?
Older versions of the Thunder controller didnāt use the standard Ruida settings for rotary, and instead just scaled the Y axis output being sent to the machine. I havenāt seen enough of these systems yet to fully understand how this is done. Newer versions use the U axis to control the rotary, but are otherwise very similar in how they work to other Ruida models.
Hi, thanks for the replies.
I think it is about 5 years old.
Is there any way it can be made operational?
The output for the rotary unit was a plug inside the top of the unit basically the Y-axis plugged into it and you removed that and plugged the rotary unit into it.
could the U axis be used?
The only way to use the rotary axis on that machine with LightBurn is to scale the job in Y to make it correct. Iām going to be adding support for this to the rotary setup in LightBurn for older controllers, but it will be a bit before I can do it. The U axis cannot be used without updating the firmware in the controller itself.
Iāve just came back from doing a test of the exact solution you have just posted!
I scaled the Y-axis (divided by 5) and the test was great, Iāll do another few tests to get an exact figure to get it spot on.
The engraved image on the glass was a million times better than RDworks without having to go through Paintshop and gimp to get a decent image only for RDworks to butcher it on the glass.
So Iāll be getting a license!
Thank you for a fantastic bit of software!
No problem.
Iāve been trying to find a picture of my laser on google and I canāt find a single image that matches mine!
It was given to me by a good (bloody brilliant) friend so I donāt know the manufacturer but as it came with RD works Iām guessing Thunder laser but I cannot find the model on their site.
Right click the 'Devices" button (with your laser powered up)
You should see āFound Ruida xxxxxxā or similar along the bottom of the window
Turn off debug logging
Quit the software
Thereāll be a text file called LightBurnLog.txt in your documents folder. Email it to developer at LightBurnSoftware and include a link to this thread. I might not be classifying that controller properly.
Oz, I have a 2-yo Thunderlaser Nova 24 with their chuck-based rotary axis. I havenāt tried to use it yet, but am willing to test it with a Lightburn version that adds direct support should you need someone for that sort of testing.
Itās a 5-pin connector with a separate switch to activate it. Does that info help? I havenāt tried to use it yet so donāt know how it is supposed to work but can find out. I would like to use it in future and am willing to take some time to explore it if that will help you make it usable with LB.
Just did some image searching for the controller and you are correct it is a Ruida RDLC320-A
I found it on Aliexpress.
Would a better controller be beneficial or will I be better off just keeping this one?
Itās a capable controller - thereās nothing wrong with it, just a little bit older and a few of the newer settings donāt work with it (rotary included). Swapping out to a 6445G would give you a shiny large LCD display and a nice keypad, but the functionality wouldnāt be affected much (aside from the rotary settings).
Iām going to be adding handling of devices that use scaling for rotary instead of the on-controller settings, so if you can wait for that, you likely wonāt see much difference, aside from the above. Doing a controller swap isnāt āhardā, but it can be tedious - you have to move all the settings across, re-do the wiring, test and iterate to make sure everything is set correctly, and itāll mean a day or two of downtime.
Thanks for the reply Iāll keep this one and use Lightburn.
Iāll just scale any rotary jobs, I only use about six glass sizes when engraving so once they are calculated all will be well.
Just going through the tutorial videos and Iām very impressed so far.
Hopefully, Iāll have the funds for the licence soon, I have 25 days to go so Iāll make it no problem.
Keep up the great work with this software.
