Is this a good idea?
According to the website, it is pretty straight forward. Anyone made the switch?
Clear Path servos
What benefits do servos have when driving a laser?
There is a video connected to the link explaining the advantages
It looks to me like the benefits claimed mostly relate to better power at low speed, eliminating the chance of lost steps, and less noise. I’ve never had a problem with any of those issues with my Thunder Laser Nova 24 laser, which uses Leadshine steppers and drivers. I understand that some folks just like to upgrade for the sake of upgrading but fail to see any actual benefit here, at least in my use case. Do folks with other laser brands have problems with lost steps or inadequate power? Is there some other benefit that servos provide and that I may have missed?
My situation is that I am already experiencing issues with the stepper system and since my laser work area is rather large, rastering times may be improved significantly, given that the laser is capable of firing at the higher speeds. I think of the Camfive as a platform to build upon based on my needs, not just limited to the technologies available at the time of production. Lightburn is a perfect example of an upgrade from the program that was provided.
I don’t have a clearpath motor and haven’t seen any posts where they were used on a laser.
Top notch motors from what I’ve heard at a premium cost. Similar to closed loop stepper motors. Since there is no loss of steps when roster scanning (and no loads) I’m not aware of the benefit. If anything it might make the X axis carriage heavier. Also these are premium motors that have sophisticated programming so the videos might make the setup easier then it actually is.
I’d take another look at your existing setup for ways to improve. But if your someone who wants the latest gadgets please let us know how they worked.
I would consider an increase in process speed to be a significant improvement. With 100 watts of CO2 to play with,I’m aiming for greater productivity than the limits of the stock system. What’s expensive?
If we are talking about raster engraving three factors affect the image produced. Speed, power and lens. Obviously scan increment, material and a bunch of other things also have an affect. The slower you go the deeper it engraves. The finer you focus the more crisp the image. The power supply has to keep up with power on and off many times during each pass.
So standard steppers can move quite fast but that might not produce the best image. I’ve just never found that the highest speed produced the best image.
Keep in mind we are talking about moderate cost CO2 lasers here. All is quite different and faster with professional machines like Epilog.
Assuming run faster so, scan faster?
You can probably outrun your lps right now, assuming a hv excited co2.
How fast and at what dpi?
Probably relatively easy to figure top speed for a certain dpi.
I have enough acceleration on my machine (65,000mm/s^2). If I allow that acceleration to just move the head without lasing, it will shake the machine so hard it will move a 12" sq chunk of slate out of alignment.
The statements they make about how it’s controlled have me wondering, I’ll have to carouse the site a little bit. They claim they use the step/direction signals, but are kind of unclear how some of the operations work or any kind failure feedback.
And most of all they are pretty expensive…
I’d love to know if they work out.
Good luck
I switched all my steppers on my CNC to the Pseudo Servo motors you are talking about. There is a lot of torque and mass to move on a CNC, so I saw a considerable improvement for ACCURACY on my system. But it has ball screw drive as well. I have an XM-1060 100 Watt laser, and would not even contemplate switching out the steppers. You are driving a belt, so acceleration and deceleration are an issue, and I see more inaccuracies from that belt(s) than losing steps. I have never lost steps on my laser, but have on my CNC before the switch. In my case, I did also have to replace the drivers for the cnc motors, but the software stayed the same. It was well worth the money on the CNC, don’t see it’s benefit on a laser… Generally, you are using the laser at low speeds, at least for cutting thick or deep, and for engraving etc, I can see going a bit faster… but… well… I don’t think it is worth it on a laser…
I think I agree, as you can outrun the lps with a standard machine now, so going faster won’t buy you much.
How much did the conversion cost?
This was about 4 years ago, *I replaced 4 NEMA 34 steppers with 4 NEMA 34 Pseudo Servo Steppers, ( 86HSE8N-BC38 Closed Loop Stepper Motor ) along with their drivers and cables. Cost me about $650 for that. Never missed a step since, and I can drive them faster.
I looked into these but the price for gain on a small machine put it out of range for me.
Most of what I’ve been using is belt driven laser. I wonder what they cost today.?
Thanks
I was using Leadshine closed loop hybrid steppers on a 100W laser and changed them out for Clearpath servo’s. Using a Ruida controller running Lightburn. Found a issue where it would not do circles or curves correctly. Tried a Trocen controller with the same result. Also tried RDworks with the same result. Contacted Teknic and they remote connected to my laser and using the scope they determined that the issue was coming either from the controller or the software. The saw a definite spike where the problem was. They were unable to correct the problem, so offered a refund on the CLearpath servo’s. Their theory was the steppers just blunder through the spike and don’t fully follow the correct path. Refitted the Leadshine hybrid steppers and the issue went away.
So the path you programmed and was working properly with steppers was actually erroneous?
They are doing one thing and telling you it’s actually raining.
With the steppers there was no problem. I had a few issues that i thought the steppers were losing steps and that is why i wanted to upgrade to the servo’s. Servo’s didn’t fix the small problem i had though. Just presented a whole different issue. The steppers did perfect circles and arcs
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