I’d say the 1.5 turns is the motor… that’s more likely… so 1.5 X steps/rotation = gui value…
I’ve yet to see a rotary where the motor turns 1/2 turn to the chucks does 1 turn…
Sounds dangerously like an assumption to me … 
That said, yeah, if I were doing it, I’d gear the motor down rather than up.
We also read left to right 
Hello again, finally had time between runs to mess around with with. Now I am back with more questions.
I manually checked my motor and it’s actually 2:1 not 1.5:1. It takes 2 full turns of the motor, to complete 1 full turn of the chuck. I have my driver set at 5000 and my settings in the controller @ 10000.
So with RDworks, I am able to set the U as the rotating access and able to download/run jobs to my Ruida. Originally when I was trying, the text would come out reversed until I swapped wires on the driver. However, the issue is if I send a 100mmx100mm box to the rotary tool, the x axis = 100mm for the output but the u axis = 43mm. I used the step calculator inside the controller but there is no change to the 43mm output.
I attempted to do the test in Lightburn but it just a moves my y axis and not the u so it’s doesn’t help me.
Any ideas on what I am missing? I feel like I am so close yet not close enough.
Thanks again for all you of you help
After spending most of the morning today, I think I figured it out. My stepper motor is a 2:1 ratio at the motor, even though the (very limited) information from the manufacturer said it’s 1.5:1. My stepper driver is set to 1.91A and 5000 steps. On the controller side, under user Menu>User settings, the rotary is set to yes, the steps per rotation is set to 10000.
The diameter part was throwing me off. Everything I found online kept mentioning “chuck diameter. I set up a test of a 50mmx50mm square in RDWorks and sent it to my machine but each time it would not be 50x50. I tried doing the automatic calculations in the vendor settings, but that made zero difference.
I also tried changing the steps per rotation under the user settings and I was able to get it to make the correct dimensions for the 50x50 square. I thought I had it resolved. Unfortunately, I tried on a test glass that I had and the image was extremely distorted. So I started again. I changed driver steps, I changed u axis steps in the controller…nothing seemed like a real solution.
I what I finally found out is that in the user settings under “diameter”, I must have the actual diameter of the item I am engraving one. After changing all my settings back to the 5000 / 10000. I decided to try my original test on a 43mm diameter item and set the user settings to this number and it worked, I did another test on a 105mm diameter item and modified the user settings again and it worked again. Success!
So if anyone is setting up a new rotary tool make sure do the following:
- verify your wiring, follow the wire not the color
- Find the ratio of your motor, how many times does the motor turn to make a full turn on the chuck?
- Verify your software version of the Ruida, there apparently are 3 different versions (v15,v25,v35) because it will affect how you interact with the controller
- Driver rotation x number of times motor turns to make complete chuck rotation = the number you put under user settings for steps per rotation.
- Make sure you enter the diameter of the material and enter it into the user settings each time you use a different sized material.
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Thank you for posting this. Rotaries are extremely useful accessories, but they can be a real PITA to set up sometimes. The steps you posted serve as a good reminder for folks to be methodical when trying to solve a problem.
I’m sorry you didn’t pick up on what’s actually occurring here… I think you had the epiphany when you realized this mistake.
I hope that wasn’t because we do target the chuck rotating once during a setup… but there is no mention of it’s diameter as it doesn’t matter.
It it’s small enough to hold a pen or large enough for a battleship, one rotation is the chuck is target setup. The test button does one rotation and then back, but it’s the one rotation we want.
What you are trying to set up is what’s known as the surface speed… All machining goes by surface speed, although when we say 300mm/s, on a laser, we can easily imagine it as how fast the tool is moving across the material. Simply because the material isn’t moving while it’s being lased.
In real life machining, the material may be moving while the tool is working, that changes the actual relative speed that the tool move across the material, hence the surface speed is the proper term.
All a rotary does is look like one of the axes. There being two types, chuck and wheeled (or roller). The wheeled version, set up properly, requires no knowledge of the diameter because the driving wheel or roller moves 2mm so does the surface of the work. It is direct drive to the surface of the object.
A chuck is a bit different, compared to the wheel type, it’s driving it from the center of the object.
If you put something in there that is 10mm in diameter, the distance around the object is 31.41mm…, if it’s 100mm then the distance around the object is 314.1mm. If the chuck rotates the object one complete turn, the distance it moves for both 10mm and 100mm objects are the same, with identical chuck movement.
To complete both, the distance on one is 10X that of the other, so the distance of 314.1mm has to covered in one rotation the same as the smaller one. The only way this can occur is if the surface speed of the 100mm object is 10X that of the 10mm object… hence surface speed is probably the correct term.
I use the calculator in the gui every time I use the rotary… I need some kind of outline so I know my work area, so it calculates one of the boundaries for the tool layer I setup for the artwork.
It’s ignored with a wheeled rotary, but is computationally required on a chuck type.
When you do a setup, the end product is to get the chuck rotating once, the rest of it falls into place by using the objects diameter…
Hope this helps…
Don’t feel bad, we all struggle with this stuff when we are first exposed to it. But you made a good point to others that it’s much better to understand the complete picture.
When you are doing your artwork … you design it just like it was flat, understanding it will be wrapped around the object…
Good luck, we are here if you have issues… take care…
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