I’m new to rotaries, and so far everything is working fine. However, my bed size is 510x300mm. I’ve heard from some people that they add a 2nd fake machine (with larger dimensions- like 510x600) so that they can do full wraps around tumblers whose circumference is larger than 300mm.
I don’t like that idea. There must be some way to have LightBurn understand that a 400mm wrap that extends past the normal bed size should still work when working with a rotary and the Y axis is disabled.
How can this be done? Or does LightBurn need to disable the Y axis boundaries when rotaries are enabled? Is that an option already? Can LB be set to change the Y axis max travel depending on the rotary (in machine options)?
That’s exactly what people are doing. But I think LightBurn should make it so that isn’t necessary. It should be simple enough: if rotary is active, ignore Y axis machine size.
You are not the first person on the block who’s struggled with this on rotaries. There is some wisdom in actually using these over time … maybe these suggestions are more valid than you think.
The most basic and simple reason for these limits, they are there to protect your machine from the humanoids that issue destructive commands.
How is it a controller issue? LightBurn won’t send what’s out of bounds. Does changing the Working Area dimensions in LightBurn change the settings on the controller? I don’t think so. In fact, LightBurn will usually frame oversized items that are out of bounds, but only when rotary is active. LightBurn normally would entirely ignore stuff that’s out of bounds, but it added stuff to framing that was even outside the X axis with rotary active.
There’s no struggle. I’m annoyed by a software limitation that shouldn’t exist.
These limits/protections don’t exist when you lie about the bed size.
Option 1: lie about the bed size with a duplicate of the machine.
Option 2: have an option specifically set for rotary use, switches limitations back to normal automatically upon disabling rotary.
Option 2 is actually safer! If you turn off the rotary in LightBurn, the normal Working Area limits should automatically return. If you’re using the current method (Option 1), then you (silly humanoid) can forget to switch machines in LightBurn and screw something up. Option 1 doesn’t actually protect from human error, it makes it more dangerous.
ETA: One other big problem with this. Camera calibration is less than fun for having the machine setup once. How many times will I have to do that for each rotary version of the machine duplicated?
That’s another thing LightBurn needs: separate profiles for different rotaries that users can save independently. I have two rotaries now, and I’ll probably buy at least one more. I should be able to save settings and switch between them without having yet another reason to duplicate my machine settings.
I don’t understand your attitude in this thread. I stated what’s essentially a feature request describing limitations in the software that can be vastly improved. And you respond with awkward sarcasm. If you’re unable to help, why respond at all?
LightBurn is great. That doesn’t mean it can’t also be better.
Rotary setup options and working area settings for rotaries are currently lacking in LightBurn. It’s as simple as that.
Adding a separate device is what I’ve done, but I haven’t had to increase the bed size. My largest tumblers are 40oz Stanley’s, which come in at around 317mm.
People are creating new devices because it makes sense, works, and allows you to easily switch back and forth. You’re not “lieing” about the bed size when you do this. You’ve physically changed the axis by attaching your rotary.
As an alternative suggestion could you flip the rotary 90 degrees and swapped it with the other axis? That would give you the 510mm limit instead of the 300mm limit. I’ve considered rotating my rotary so that up in Lightburn is the top of the cup, which might be a positive side-effect. I’d still create a duplicate of the machine though because there are a handful of settings I change when I’m using the rotary.
If LightBurn was improved, the same machine could be used in all cases. The option for the bed size could be activated when the rotary is active. “Enter Rotary Y axis length”, multiple options for saved rotaries within the same machine (or even across machines), etc. These are improvements that can certainly be made within the software. Make the user workflow easier/more efficient = better program.
Exactly right! The axis changes when the rotary is enabled, so LightBurn should account for that.
That’s not an option with my laser. I have the OMTech Polar, and the rotary cutout is a rectangle.
What other settings do you change besides the bed size when you enable the rotary?
I get what you’re saying. In my mind, however, it’s a different machine when the rotary is on. In fact, most of this stuff is saved with the machine and I’d prefer they go the other route and save the rotary on/off option with the machine too. But, there are probably relatively large differences between machines.
I have a whole checklist of things I need to remember to change when I’m using the rotary.
Set the device to Falcon2 w/ R1 Chuck
Disabled out of bounds warnings (this is saved in device settings)
Rotate the image so the top is to the right (top toward mouth opening)
Make sure Enable Rotary is on (I wish this was saved to device settings)
Set the Circumference to the actual measurement of your cup
Set the layer Speed settings to 9,000
Set the layer Power settings to 50% (70% for blue or teal colors)
Set number of passes to 2
Turn on the air assist on all the layers to keep the laser clean
Set Start From to Current Position
Specify the Job Origin point (I often select the middle right)
If that would work, then it should have a second option for when Rotary is active. I haven’t tested it to confirm yet, but it seems that LB ignores that feature when the rotary is active anyway.
The only other problem is needing to automatically set the y axis max travel in the machine settings. But I would think that could be attacked to the rotary settings options.
You’re certainly right about that. Every machine is different, many of your choices wouldn’t work for me.
One thing is weirder for me. I have to choose top row options for job origin (even with current position selected). If I choose middle or bottom row, the framing doesn’t do the full image. It’s pretty weird. I assume the point of the job origin is for image placement. For example, if I choose middle center, then I assume the point in the center should be the center of the image. For whatever reason, when I frame from that position, it only frames half of the image.
A similar request was made in Fider linked here, but it never really gained any momentum.
To have LightBurn optionally automatically extend Y axis max length at the same time the rotary is enabled and then restore the previous setting when rotary is disabled would be convenient.
It could be problematic though if LightBurn was closed before Rotary was disabled - then the machine would still have the wrong setting and may be damaged on the next job, or if a shared machine - by the next unsuspecting person to use it. Whereas, if somebody wants to make a change to the Machine Vendor Settings then they have to accept the warning that pops up, so the onus is in that person to remember to put the setting back.
I’m curious about positioning on the polar with rotary, (with the default Y axis travel settings and a job no more than 300mm circumference), if you switch to use ‘Current Position’ as your ‘Start From’ mode, and set the ‘Job Origin’ to centre, then jog the laser to the centre of the (selected) rotary job (Arrange>Move Laser to Selection>Center) do you still have issues, framing & running the job?
That’s not completely correct. Just select “current position” as starting position as well as “cut selected graphics only” and I can send any sized shape to the laser. The workspace size doesn’t matter at all, then.
I use diode lasers, so this might be a “feature” of grbl-based control, though.
Agreed. So it would be important to add something showing the Y axis max travel state. It could be an info box in one of the default tabs in LightBurn. I would guess in the Move box below the saved positions would make sense.
I’ll test that out and report back…but it might be a couple days before I reconnect the rotary. Any time I’ve tried anything but the top row for origin, it did weird things. That’s regardless of size. For example, a logo less than 80mm tall, even before changing Y axis max travel at all. If the logo is 80mm tall, with current position selected, if I put the origin in the middle row, it would only frame 40mm tall. I never did click move laser to selection>center though. Maybe that’s the trick. I assumed that since it was set as “Current position” then the current position should automatically be the origin, regardless of which origin point I chose.
I made a 100mm square to test, and that worked. I didn’t try an actual burn, but it was the first time framing was correct.
It’s weird though. First, if Start from is set to ‘current position’ why would there be any absolute coordinates considered? “Move Laser to Selection Center” positions the X point based on the absolute coordinates in LightBurn’s working area, essentially ignoring ‘start from’ being ‘current position.’
