X Axis "Goes Off Pattern", "Awry", "Skewed", "Travels"

Hello Everyone,

Try Googling this issue. I really searched quite a bit before posting this. Hence all the tags I added.

I have a K40 "Chinese Laser" with a new 3rd party stepper driver board. The computer has plenty of memory. I am using both Mach3 and LinuxCNC (EMC2) to run mostly vector cuts. It has run very successfully for most of the more simple basic cuts I have been doing. However, I have done some raster engraving and I noticed that after some use, the X-Axis starts to travel. A raster engraving of a square looks more like a trapezoid. Many times when it starts cold, the square is perfect. I ran some vector cut tests to emulate the raster process by creating a square with .2mm hatch lines and it still travels. Not as much though as the raster.

The final straw was after running a successful vector engraving of a drawing with hatch lines used on a trophy plaque. On the next cut the patter jumped about 3mm on the X axis about halfway through. I followed up with some rudimentary vector cuts of filleted rectangles and the lines did not meet up at the end.

Is this heat, stepper driver board, computer or stepper motor related?

Thanks for all the help and support.

Hi there
you probably need to tighten your Xaxis belt and tightne the set screw on the motor pully, thats typical by k40 machines, sometimes after just a few hr the belt is allready worn out.
greetings
waltfl