[jencen]

Hi everyone.

I'm still having issues with my HPC laser HX40b - Effectively the rabbit but rebranded for the UK market.

over it's brief but (mostly) happy life with me i've had a few issues with it such as focusing properly to do aluminuium dogtags, power to do alu dogtags and general alignment issues.

It's now started to throw major hissy fits.
One of it's current problems is it will start a job fine then at a certain point it will make an awful clunk as both motors stop working and the controllerboard freezes. powercycling does nothing and i have to randomly pull leads on the board until it works again.

Problem the second. it's not lining pieces up properly. the only way i've found to line stuff up right is to draw a square larger than the workpiece then set as do not cut. this then 'normally' lets me position it properly at the home position. not any more it seems.

It's having major issues and i'm seriously considering getting rid.
I no longer have the time or effort to put into it. it's costing me more in materials because i can't do big pieces ithout worrying that the motors are going to stall or it will crash completely


So yeah. ANy help with it would be appreciated.
An offers to take it off my hands would also be welcome ;-)

[zax15uk]

Hi, the 'clunk' sound is most likely the motors shutting down. This could be caused by overheating of the driver (overcurrent). I would disconnect the motors from the axis and run a job to see if it works ok without friction. You can also slide the axis manually (only do this with the motors disconnected mechanically or electrically) to see if they are smooth and free.

The other problems could be related too, so I would start with the above.

Zax.

[jencen]

I've played around with the slides before as one of the issues was the gantry binding and stalling the motors out.
the slides and bearings are kept lubricated.

A question on belt tension though. it only seems to run well when the belts are loose.
and i mean with enough play in them to be pushed past each other. i spent 2 hours trying to get the tension on them just right and now it seems it's tripping the board then.
what is the ideal tension on the belts.

[zax15uk]

The belts don't need to be very tight, it should be easy to pinch them together. It is more of a feel thing so difficult to explain but they should not have any obvious appearance of slack. On larger machines there is usually a spec for force vs. deflection but I am not aware of one for these systems. It may take as little as 20-25g for full belt deflection (the point when the top touches the bottom).

If you loosen the belts or remove them does it run ok? If so, it doesn't sound like you have too much wrong.

Zax.

[jencen]

Hi
I've had a little play in the setup of newleydraw.
I've swapped the orientation of the laser in the settings. now instead of driving the ganty left/right and stepping down with the Y it's driving the Y axis up/down and steppind accross with the gantry.
This to my mind is how it should have worked in the first place.
This should hopefully sort a couple or problems.

I also checked the freedom of movement in the axies. they are free to move with no noticable binding

many thanks

[zax15uk]

The orientation should be set to the top right option, from the 8 available choices. The PosMode setting should be XY at top left.

The on screen setup with then replicate to the tool and work like you would expect.

If you have the axis swapped (I'm not sure if you do or not from the explanation) it will not work well for rastering.

Zax.

[jencen]

yes. the orientation is the same. home point top left.
But there's an option in newleydraw saying laser direction. this is up at the top beneath the bedsize options.

this has had the effect of changing what each of the axis does.
sorry. i suck at explaining things.
Normally y axis is the gantry, moves left/right and does the sweeping back/forth during raster.
x axis is the laser head, moves up/down and steps down for each line of the rasterjob.

the setting i've changed doesn't alter the designation of the axis just what it does. so now the y steps to move down the design. and the x axis is the part sweeping to do the engraving.
Hopefully this clarifies things. i've done a couple of jobs with it and it seems fine

[zax15uk]

What you describe is the CORRECT orientation, it sounds like your machine was incorrectly setup initially.

Zax.

[jencen]

that really doesn't suprise me in the least.

in the setup instructions it lists Dpi as 1018.
took me 2 months to figure out this was the cause of it making everthing too big.



so basically the little laser head should scan. and the gantry should step?
hence why it's overloading the driver at having to move a big heavy gantry all the time?

[zax15uk]

Exactly, the lower mass of the head should be scanning back and forth just like a print head on an inkjet printer. This improves accuracy and is much easier on the driver and mechanics.

Zax.

[jencen]

i have 2 options among the 8 in the settings.
One shows home in top left with the X running left/right and the Y up down. the other is home top left with the y as left right and X as up down
Which of these is actually the right one? o.o

[zax15uk]

How about 'neither', the correct one is the top right of the 8, see attached.

Zax.

[jencen]

OK. am lost now. (sorry i can be thick at times)

What do these buttons actually set?
I thought it was home position?

[jencen]

Heres my setup as it is

[zax15uk]

They are setting the machine coordinate system, which includes the origin (0,0) and the XY axis orientation.

When you go to 0,0 on the machine where does the head end up? (in general you want it to be the back left corner so it matches the screen)

When you move down on the screen does the laser head do the same?

If so, you're golden!

The setting you have should result in XY being swapped but from your description it sounds like it's correct - so perhaps your table is different.

Zax.

[rabbitlaser]

I've played around with the slides before as one of the issues was the gantry binding and stalling the motors out.
the slides and bearings are kept lubricated.

A question on belt tension though. it only seems to run well when the belts are loose.
and i mean with enough play in them to be pushed past each other. i spent 2 hours trying to get the tension on them just right and now it seems it's tripping the board then.
what is the ideal tension on the belts.

hi Jen,
about the tension on the belts,
from a simple experience, the belts tension should not be very tight,
better it is a bit loose and almost same tension for the two belts,
in order to make sure the beam with the head can move easily and smoothly.
about the tension check, you can do it by hand, with your fingers pressing on the belts, and getting the same feelings for the two belts tension, not need to be quite exact, the point is "to make sure the beam with the head can move easily and smoothly".
good luck.