Help! Still a newbie!
When I first got my kit I very easily cut out letters in 3mm ply and again I cut out an engraving in 6mm ply using multiply passes over the cut outline.
Suddenly I can etch OK but it doesn’t seem to want to cut. What have I changes? Added a honeycomb base and an air pump.
I just tried to cut out a small circle at 100% power and 1mm/min speed in 3mm ply and just got a scorched circle image. I cannot see what else I have changed.
Sometimes I get an error message about being outside my cut range which I don’t understand. Could fitting the air attachment change the focal length of the laser? I think I must have inadvertently changed a switch somewhere in the software ( ver 1.3.01) but no idea where or what.
Any help will be most gratefully received - Many thank.
Me again … Just drew a simple square and tried cutting on 4mm ply.
Power 100%, speed 1mm/min, full air. Made 5 passes - no sign of a cut through! Clean line- no scorching.
Does the amount of air make any difference?
I must have changed something somewhere but, apart from the honey comb table and the air additions, I am stuck.
I am using the Atomstack S10 Pro with the Atomstack Air kit.
The air assist should help you cut material. Did you refocus the laser after adding the honeycomb table? It sounds to me that it could be a focus issue.
Check your lens to make sure it’s not damaged or dirty. Run a focus test afterwards to see if you’re cutting through at all. If that doesn’t work, post your cut settings and we can take a look at those.
If you’ve been running your machine without anything blowing the air away from the end of your laser diode unit then you probably have some serious debris on your laser diode lens. Air assist has 2 functions, to blow debris from the cut and to blow the smoke away from the lens.
you can use a small fan on the side of your work parts to blow the smoke sideways and away from the lens when engraving. With air assist for cutting you want to small tight stream blowing right at the cut but for engraving you can use anything to blow the smoke away from the lens.
Hi All,
Thank you all for your help. I answered all three of you in this one post.
Hi Jim,
My machine - Atomstack S10 Pro is a fixed focus device. The distance above the honeycomb is set with a 2mm card so yes I did refocus.
Hi Blake,
I have just cleaned the lens and the air nozzle. It has improved cutting a bit - 4mm ply cut through with 4 passes at 100% and 1mm/min! I wanted to upload my cut settings but not sure how to do so on this site???
Regards,
Peter
Hi Doug,
Thanks for your advice. See above - I did clean out the lens and the air nozzle. Slight improvement. Thanks for the tip re the fan.
I don’t know how that product handles cooling of the diode laser module but heat kills diodes. The Ortur unit I have used to vary the laser module cooling fan speed based on the power being set and that seemed like a good way to not only wear the fan motor quickly but also limit cooling. So I disconnected the PWM to the fan and connected it up to the 12V feeding the module since it turned on/off with the laser module. Later, Ortur added a firmware update which left the laser module power on for about 30 seconds after the laser power was stopped.
All things to save the laser module from an early death.
So if your wiring to the module and your power supply to the machine are in good shape AND you’ve cleaned the lens completely then you’re likely looking at a degraded laser diode module.
Hi Doug,
Thanks for your reply.
I think you hit it on the head!
I think that this is a two laser unit joined by a mirror and one of them has failed leaving me with a 5w system.
Regarding diode cooling, the Atom seems to have a fan built into the laser block which runs when the machine is switched on rather than just when the laser is powered up.
This is a new machine - arrived 27 Nov with the separate Air unit arriving Dec 6. The Air kit is entirely an option, the basic machine can be used as is. The laser lens was cleaned when I fitted the Air Assist nozzle which has a much smaller hole that the original - non air assist nozzle.
I have been forced to try lower and lower cutting speeds, down to 1mm per minute at 100% power to try to get it to cut. I am sure that when I originally got the machine, before I got the Air Assist, I was not cutting at anything like those settings! (Being a newbie of course and having just received the machine, I did not note down the settings but even without Air Assist I was successfully cutting 6mm ply - albeit with multi passes).
Anyway, I have sent an email and photos to Atomstack support to the effect that this machine will be returned to Amazon unless they can come up with a fix/explanation. We shall see.
Thanks again for your help - Merry Christmas!
Have you tried removing the nozzle altogether just incase it is not perfectly centered and the laser beam is hitting the inside of the nozzle?
I put the original (non Air Assist nozzle back on with a hole of about 1.3 cms) just to make sure that there was no interference. The Air Assist nozzles could be a problem if the laser assy got out of line because the hole in that nozzle is only 3mm in diameter! As the air assist came with two identical nozzles I drilled one out to about 8mm just to try - no change. The most logical explanation would seem to be that I only have a 5w laser - I shall wait to see what support says.
Best regards
Further to my earlier reply …
See attached (leaf project) - 3mm ply, 100% power, 301mm/min feed, 3 passes with air assist. Focus wise it looks OK - I think - as a newbie!!!
The 2nd photo was a project I did when I first got he machine. Can’t remember the settings but it was without air assist in same 3mm ply.
I don’t know which image is first or 2nd but I’ll guess that the image of the cut out “T” is one you did when you got the machine and cut in 3 passes. The leaf image is one you tried recently and it wouldn’t cut at ~3mm/s and 100% power even at 3 passes.
Personally, I never run any of my machines at 100% power. Not my CO2 nor my ~3.5W(15W) Ortur diode laser. Again, because heat kills diodes running at max power is hoping the heatsinks function instantaneously at removing heat and the fan blowing down the heatsink is removing heat efficiently.
I would not be surprised if one of the 2 diodes failed from being run at 100% power and now you’ve only got one weak diode left. I don’t cut with my ~3.5W Ortur, only engrave so I can’t relate to what settings might be normal for a diode laser to cut 3mm plywood. I use my CO2 laser for cutting/engraving and the diode laser for just engraving or doing while tile designs(search “Norton White Tile” for info).
If your module does not have any side coverings keeping the air inside the heatsink channels then you might consider fixing that on your next laser module. see this video I did showing how the air first is in the heatsink channels and then flows outside the channel as it meets resistance in the channel. Ortur laser diode heat sink airflow test
Try these
good idea looking for things limiting max power output but:
If it was missed that he’d updated his LightBurn version then maybe his max power level got reset.
Brilliant!! Thank you so very much! Merry Christmas!
The S value change worked!! I did have 2 Lightburn updates which obviously changed the value just as I added the Air Assist!
On the original (successful) cut I probable use the default power and feed settings - I should have noted them down. It was only later, after the s/w updates, that I kept upping the power and slowing the feed to try to get it to cut. I just cut a square out of 3mm ply using the 301mm/min feed, 70% power and three passes with air assist. perfect cut with no scorching! Thank you so much Doug. Now I wait to see what Atomstack support have to say??? Probably have to do a bit of grovelling!!!
Good news! You’ll want to mark @saok post as the “solution” so the thread shows up as solved.
I have never known a LightBurn update to modify an S Value Max value. If you ever recreated your device it’s possible that the S Value Max was different than previous iterations but again, I don’t believe LightBurn will ever arbitrarily change S Value Max for an existing device.
Thanks for your comment. I don’t recall changing the machine set-up but as a newbie - who knows??? I did initially find the software overpowering but I do now seem to be getting to know it better - thanks in no small part to the friendly folk on this forum! Merry Christmas to you all!
Make sure it’s focused correctly. Doesn’t say what optical output of the module. $30 and S value should match. I suggest 1000