Steps it takes to make one full revolution

I’m brand new with a used Laguna 100w laser with Rudia controller. Far from an expert, but I’m doing okay with flat items, but have had very little success with the rotary tool
I go but cannot determine the number of steps my rotary takes to make one full revolution.
To be honest, I’m not sure what a step is. Please help.

Stepper motors are called steppers because they don’t rotate continuously when you apply power, but move to a set “step” and hold there. The most common kind are 1.8 degrees per step, or 200 steps per complete rotation. The stepper motor driver has an input wire to tell the stepper which direction to move, and another wire that gets pulsed when the motor should take a single step. The motor driver will have switches that tell it if you want full steps, half steps, quarter steps, etc, giving you more than 200 steps per rotation by letting you ‘fade’ between steps.

That’s the theory bit. In practice, there’s also gearing or pulleys in the mix that will increase the number of steps it takes to spin the rotary once, so the easiest way to figure it out is just trial and error.

Pick an arbitrary number, like 4000 steps, enter that, then click the ‘Test’ button in the rotary setup. If the rotary turns exactly one full rotation, pauses, and returns, you’re done. If it makes less than a full turn your number is too small, and if it goes more than a full turn your number is too big. Adjust based on how much over / under it went - if it did exactly two full spins, your number is twice as large as needed.

You want to watch the rotary itself, not the item on it - so if you have a roller rotary, you watch the roller itself to see if it turned exactly once. If you have a chuck rotary, watch the chuck itself.

Once you have the right value you shouldn’t ever have to change it, and can just tweak the diameter number if you need to.

Thank you very much. I can’t wait to give it a try. The rotary is the only item I could not figure out.
I appreciate your help.

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