Hey there, I’m running a Shapeoko 3XXL with a JTech 24W Quad Pro Laser and a JTech Rotary Accessory on Lightburn 1.3.01. I’m no stranger to running the laser on it’s own but I’ve hit a road block getting the rotary accessory to work right.
The “Roller Diameter” field in the “Rotary Setup” window seems to have no affect on what the machine is doing, and therefore none of the content i’m trying to engrave is scaling properly. I can set the value to 10.0 inches or 0.1 inches and the resulting travel on the test piece is the exact same. It sees the value entered and allows you to exit the window, but that value does nothing to change the output of the machine.
I’d suggest checking the steps/rotation or mm/rotation without any adjustment for ratio.
If the motor rotates one rotation and back… If you get that right, you can apply your ratio to get proper mm/rotation. Then try the proper driving wheel diameter.
I experienced the same problem you are describing. Changing the roller diameter had no effect on how much my test cylinder (quart-sized paint can) was rotating when I used the jog buttons. Per JTech customer service, that is to be expected. What JTech told me to do is the following: Create a vertical line the circumference of the test cylinder, with the origin set to top center. Mark the test cylinder. Then either run a frame or run the project with laser output at zero and check to see if the cylinder makes one full rotation. If not, adjust roller diameter (assuming it is not set correctly).
Are you having your problem using the jog buttons or when running the project? If the latter, confirm that rotary is enabled.
In speaking with JTech I learned that just about every setting provided in the rotary instruction manual is wrong. As an example, per the instructions the roller diameter should be set to 0.523", but measuring my rollers with calipers reveals a diameter of 0.470. That’s a huge difference. I advised JTech of this and suggested I wouldn’t need to be speaking with them if the instructions were accurate. That didn’t seem to get their attention.
I hope that helps a bit. I did my best based on the information provided, but am happy to try to assist further. I struggled with the rotary and can relate to the frustration. I will also offer that JTech customer service was very helpful in walking me through this.
I laid out the most simple way to determine what’s going on. What they told you to do doesn’t really help you determine these settings.
No drawing, setting power/speed, just simple mechanics.
Lightburn has a test button on it’s gui to allow you to check results.
setup the rotary with the motors mm/rotation
use the test button in the gui, the motor should rotate one complete rotation and back
apply the ratio between the motor and drive wheel and use this as the new mm/rotation
a. using the test button now, should rotate the driving wheel one rotation and back
measure diameter of drive wheel for the setup
No effect? Did this fix the issue?
If a change in roller diameter shows no output change, that sounds like a configuration issue of some type.
This part of the computations to move from a table to a rotary of this type.
There are plenty of variations of grbl around… but generally they work.
