Software: LB 1.6.03 (also observed at least some of the same issues on 1.6.00)
Windows 10, 64 bit
Xtool D1 with RA2 rotary tool in “chuck” setup
There’s something wacky with the rotary mode. I have the exact same setup, config, etc. and I get two different outputs, randomly.
In both cases below, the “mirror output to rotary” is enabled. You can see this in the Laser tool box where it says “(Mirror output)” but clearly one of them isn’t mirrored and the other is.
What’s the difference? I went into the rotary setup, turned mirror off, then turned it back on.
vs.
How did I get into the quirky state? I’m not entirely sure but I think it has something to do with switching from fill mode to line mode or vice versa, sometimes. I can’t consistently reproduce it (except, of course, when I’m cutting something valuable for a customer and then it randomly happens to destroy the product by printing backwards).
I’ve seen a number of other wacky things as well. The green “job position” box moves to a random spot sometimes. Rather than be on a corner or in the middle, it will appear in some odd place like part way down a side. You can see this in the second image above where the green square is part way down the left side. Not on the top left corner where it should be (note the “job origin” setting remains top left corner).
No amount of clicking on the various job origin buttons will get it to return to the proper place. The only way to get it back to the right spot is to turn off “enable rotary” and turn it back on. This restores the proper position.
When it’s in this “confused” state, it is well and truly messed up. For example, with nothing selected in Lightburn, if you do a control-shift-A / Window | Frame selection it displays the following:
Note that it’s not showing the actual objects, it’s showing the bottom half of the canvas space. Again, it seems as though it is confused because of the “mirror output to rotary”. If you select the objects (control-a) and do frame selection again, it positions the viewport correctly.
Likewise, turning “enable rotary” off immediately restores the green “job origin” square to the correct position and then “frame selection” (with nothing selected) correctly frames the objects in the viewport.
In addition I see odd behavior on the rotary itself. It seems to lose track of where “home” is (where the job started) after I run a job. And it’s off by a different amount depending on whether the job is “fill” or “line” mode.
Both of these jobs started with the alignment lasers exactly on top of the black lines you see drawn on the paper. You can see that the “line” job was off by significantly more than the “fill” job.
“Fill” mode job:
“Line” mode job:
Before you ask …
Yes, I have the circumference of the object set correctly.
Yes, it works fine in “frame” mode (it returns to the drawn crosshairs).
Yes, I reset the crosshair laser back to the black lines between jobs
I also randomly see it just go to the opposite side of the object (rotate in the opposite direction) as though the “mirror output” were being ignored. Again, the fix is to go into rotary setup and turn off, and then back on, “mirror output”.
At this point I can’t trust the rotary tool to do the right thing. I’ve destroyed several customer items so far and it’s cost me a fair bit to replace them (not to mention looking incompetent to the customer). I can’t even trust the aluminum foil and paper pretest because the software randomly does the wrong thing. It might cut the paper correctly, then cut the actual item backwards.
I don’t think this has anything to do with the Xtool or the RA2. I think it is a bug in lightburn itself. I have 2 machines, one I use for design, the other I use to control the laser. I see the same odd behavior on BOTH machines. Obviously the actual laser issues I only see on the laser itself, but they seem to be symptoms of the software issues.
Thoughts? Help? Suggestions? More tests you want me to run?
