I have a machine shop and want to use my Cloudray QS-50 rotary axis to engrave two different things on two sides of a part in one operation. The part is rectangular and I want to engrave some text on one side and a logo on a side that is 90 degrees from the first. I have a fixture designed that would hold the parts such that both sides would wind up at the same height when rotated 90 degrees but I can’t see how the software can do this.
Repeat marking looked possible but it doesn’t do different marking on different parts as far as I can see. Is there a way to do this?
I tried to edit to clarify but couldn’t figure out how.
I mean, engrave one side, rotate 90 degrees, then engrave the other side with something different, then rotate 90 degrees back to the start so I can change out the parts. This is the goal.
You can’t engrave a flat surface with a rotary. Any Yaxis command would tilt the surface. You need to think in terms of an indexer head. It would stop at the 0 position, then at the 90 position. You can use a rotary as an indexer, but an indexer usually depends on limit switches for positioning.
A simple fixture could be built and controlled by a foot switch or push button.
Well I don’t know about “Y axis commands” so I googled it and it looks like it’s something that is supposed to be entered into the console? I then looked how to get to the console and the documentation says this isn’t applicable to a Galvo laser, which I have. So if I’m still missing something please explain.
If you set your rotary to “Run Whole Shapes” and placed the art a distance apart equivalent to 90 or 180 degrees you could engrave 2 sides as you describe, would take a little experimenting to get the art placed correctly but it would be no different then doing something similar on an X table.
Still, it seems like there not being a more direct way to do this seems like a big hole in the features of the software to me. I come from a CNC/Manufacturing background and wish to use the engraver in making parts. It would be nice if they could add this capability more directly. Maybe the option to engrave different layers in the positions of the repeat marking menu would be a way to implement it without changing things too much?
Put in a feature request. I’ll vote on it. LB is always adding new features, my guess is based on bang for the buck priority. As X tables became popular they have really beefed up that end. As far as rotarys, you can get them to do a lot of outside the box work if you understand the principals.
This is how I would approach your project. might work.
The rotary would flip over, but would then rotate as usual across the width of each design, distorting them perpendicular to the rotary axis. You might be able to pre-distort the geomtry using an inverse Cylinder Correction.
Correct, the run whole shapes : on, Max size a little more then 1 box and split size just a little larger then that.. Boxes should be separate squares but could be touching, don’t remove overlapping lines. It would then be forced to put A, B in the correct location.
This is very helpful! Thank you all. I’ll give it a try next week. Making my fixture is going to be a bit of a project. The part is oddly shaped, but does have two flat sides that are 90 degrees apart. I need to design the fixture so that the part rotates in such a way that both surfaces wind up at the same height in their respective position for engraving. It’s take me a bit to get it designed and made.
I tried to understand how to do a new feature request but can’t quite figure it out. I do think this would be a good addition even if the method demonstrated above will work.
Feature request: https://lightburn.fider.io/
I have made all sorts of fixtures over the years, built a few 1911’s from mild to wild, a few black guns, WA won’t allow me to by the 80% frames anymore so have some other hobbies to keep busy with.
Well this application is for scope rings. I make them for certain actions. I currently rotary engrave the part number on the bottom and my logo on the side while the parts are still in the mill. I want to try to do this on my laser engraver.
