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  1. #1

    50W 30x50cm Laser-axle and rotatory accessory problems

    Hi,

    I just bought 50W laser from eBay.


    The first problem is when I power it up, it's not aligning well at the origin. The X axle is going slowly to the right for about 5 min. and its stops somewhere on the middle of the plate.... this if it starts from the upper-left corner. If the position before start up is more to the right, then it goes up to the righter limit and it's bumping up in the metal bar. I would say that it moves around 20 cm on the X axle util it "finds" the origin

    The second problem is with the rotatory accessory. After connecting it, if I move the Y axle from the control panel, it rotates. It does nothing moving the U or Z axles from the panel. If I send a job from the PC it's moving only the X axle, no matter if checking the enable rotation or not from the software.

    PLEASE, could you help me?

    I apologize for my bad English... I'm not a native speaker.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Feb 2010
    Posts
    155

    Re: 50W 30x50cm Laser-axle and rotatory accessory problems

    iuliusdobre:

    I have this same laser. Let's troubleshoot:
    Problem 1a: 5 minutes is much, much, too long a time for the X axis to home, unless you have somehow set the travel speed very, very low. When you press the arrow keys on the control panel to move the X and Y axis, does the laser head move quickly or slowly? Does it move the same speed in X and Y? (When I hold down the X or Y axis arrow keys my laser head moves from one side of the bed to the other in about 2 seconds. Both X and Y move a roughly the same speed. I believe my speed is set to 400mm/sec.)

    Problem 1b: When you turn on the unit, the laser head should move to "home" 0,0 (far upper left corner), then move back to where it was before you turned the unit on (or perhaps where you set the "Origin" before turning it off, I am not sure). The home switches are small plastic boxes (mine are red). The X home switch is mounted on near one of the Y rails. The Y home switch is mounted on the X rail. These home switches are wired to the DSP controller (white plastic box behind the door on the right side of your machine). The behavior you describe (except the 5 minutes) is the same on my machine, except no matter where the laser head starts, it always homes correctly on my machine. It of course shouldn't be hitting the metal bar no matter what unless:
    i. The pulley that is attached to the shaft of your Y stepper motor that drives the belt could be loose. This could explain the slow movement and confused homing process. The pulley should have a very small set screw that tightens it to the shaft.
    ii. Your Y home switch may not be detecting the metal flag correctly. This could be due to a damaged wire, or potentially electrical interference. When your machine goes home (when you power up), does it go to the same place every time (far upper left corner)? If you have the red dot pointer you can watch it, or put a small piece of tape near the 0,0 point.
    iii. Did you change the maximum bed size in the firmware of the DSP controller? In the Laserworks software I have I can change the max bed size from 300x500mm to larger values if I want, but this can result in the laser head assembly hitting parts of the machine.

    2. I haven't used the rotary attachment yet. It sounds like you have it physically connected correctly (i.e. using the Y arrow keys rotates the rotary attachment) but are having software issues. Are you using Laserworks? Like I said, I haven't tried it, but I found this video on Youtube that talks about using the rotary attachment in Laserworks.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUo_9SE_J1k

    -robertk925

  3. #3

    Re: 50W 30x50cm Laser-axle and rotatory accessory problems

    Thank you so much for your post!
    1a. I exaggerate with those 5 min... are around 1.30 min (you can see it in the videos). The speed is set to 100 mm/s. After it finds the origin, pressing the X/Y arrows it moves well.
    1b. If he position of the laser head before startup is in the upper-left corner (right at the limit), the origin that finds is aprox. the same. The belts looks ok. The size of the bed is set to 500x300 mm

    2. I'm using RDWorks 8.0.27.

    I noticed a very strange thing... according to the logs the X total travel is 38.361 m... about 38 km. How is that possible?!

    Attachment 293990Attachment 293998Attachment 294002Attachment 294004
    Attachment 294006Attachment 294008Attachment 294010Attachment 294012Attachment 294014
    https://youtu.be/PlMh6ZzA2AE
    https://youtu.be/z58KHm5EtOE

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Feb 2010
    Posts
    155

    Re: 50W 30x50cm Laser-axle and rotatory accessory problems

    The videos you posted are helpful. For your reference my machine does not act this way. When I turn on the power switch, the laser head immediately moves to the far left corner (0,0), then moves quickly back to where it started from. The whole process takes about 2-3 seconds.

    It is clear that something is going on with your home switches, unless somehow you have it set to have the home position (0,0) at the center of your bed? I will try to pull up the same settings on my machine tomorrow to see how they compare with yours.

    -robertk925

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Feb 2010
    Posts
    155

    Re: 50W 30x50cm Laser-axle and rotatory accessory problems

    Attached are my settings. Note a few things:

    1. For the X axis, my "Dir polarity" is "Negative" while yours is "Positive".
    2. For the X axis, my "Step length" is 22.57349 while yours is 14.325. That is a pretty big difference. Your stepper motor controller could be using different settings than mine which might account for this, but it is something to investigate. This is the amount the machine expects the laser head to move per revolution of the stepper motor (typically). When you cut a 10mm square (for example), does the rectangle actually measure 10mm per side? Mine is accurate within +-.1mm typically.
    (3. Not relevant, but I increased my X travel "Breadth" to 525mm from the standard of 500mm.)
    4. For the Y axis, my "Dir polarity" is "Negative" while yours is "Positive".
    5. For the Y axis, my "Step length" is 22.57532 while yours is 11.81812. That is also a pretty big difference. Also, it is strange that it is so different from your X axis setting. Mine is very similar.
    (6. Not relevant, but I increased my Y travel "Breadth" to 315mm from the standard of 300mm.)
    7. Your speeds are a little bit lower, but shouldn't account for the really slow homing your machine exhibits I wouldn't think.

    I would not recommend that you blindly change all of your settings to mine even though mine work great for me. There are several different settings that interact with one another and cause your laser head to crash into the supports and other undesireable effects. Maybe try the "Dir Polarity" settings first to see if that fixes homing, then check that your pulleys are tightly secured to the stepper motor shafts, then tweak the "Step Length" if you aren't getting accurate travel/cutting.

    -robertk925

  6. #6

    Re: 50W 30x50cm Laser-axle and rotatory accessory problems

    I tried with your settings.... Unfortunately for me it didn't worked.
    Changing the polarity it reversed the arrows direction from the control panel.... pressing left it was going right and so on
    Changing the step length was changing the ratio dimension... When normally it would 300 mm, the head was moving only 200 mm (the machine thought it moved 300 mm). The belts are ok. All this was happened for both axes. I set the speed to 100 to not go to fast to the edge and damage something
    On the X axis, I've unchecked the "Enable Home" option. Now, on start up, it goes to the Y origin very quickly and it's ready to use. The bad part is that the head is positioned at X=1000, Y=0. If i go right it's going to 1500 and stops. If I go left it's bumping to the edge and it's trying to go further (I guest until reach 0). For now, I'm using it like this.
    I noticed a strange thing... the home switch of the X axis is always on (the red led). The Y one it's lighting on origin positioning and it goes off after.
    Yours are doing the same? especially the X one
    Please, could you upload your setting images to a higher resolution... I can't distinguish anything.

    -iuliusdobre

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Feb 2010
    Posts
    155

    Re: 50W 30x50cm Laser-axle and rotatory accessory problems

    I reattached my settings as separate.GIF files. Hopefully you can read them more easily.

    With regards to the home switch LED, I will have to check my machine on Monday, but I would expect the X and Y should act the same (since they are same type of switch). There must be something wrong either with the wiring of the X home switch or the software on the DSP. I would check the wiring first. Do you have a multimeter? You should check for electrical continuity between the leads on the home switch and the wires that connect to the DSP to make sure you don't have a break in the wire somewhere.

    -robertk925
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails My50WLaserSettings1.gif   My50WLaserSettings2.gif   My50WLaserSettings3.gif   My50WLaserSettings4.gif  

    My50WLaserSettings5.gif  

  8. #8

    Re: 50W 30x50cm Laser-axle and rotatory accessory problems

    I checked the wiring. Everything looks ok, but I have a few doubts (look at the image)
    1. The voltage is far from 24V
    2. the LED 14 it starts to blink after finding the origin
    3. The X limit out have always current on it.

    Please, could you have a look at your?

    Attachment 294346

    iuliusdobre

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Feb 2010
    Posts
    155

    Re: 50W 30x50cm Laser-axle and rotatory accessory problems

    On my controller LED #14 does blink and is called out as "run" (see the blue print on the top side of the controller) which I assume means that the controller is running properly. The other blinking LED is #11 "act" which I assume is network activity (I have my laser cutter hooked up via ethernet). LED #12 "link" is on continuously, again for the ethernet networking.

    Not sure about the voltage you are measuring. My wires are hot-glued in place so not very accessible, but when I measure the terminals on the power supply it definitely measures 24V.

    Did you check the continuity of the wire leading to the X home sensor?

    -robertk925

  10. #10

    Re: 50W 30x50cm Laser-axle and rotatory accessory problems

    Thank you for your post! I'm aware that you are losing your time to check those things for helping me....I really appreciate it.
    The blue print for the 1-15 LEDs I don't have it (at least I didn't see it).
    I don't have access to the other end of the X home sensor. I was afraid to dismount it for not brake it. But I have measured the tension between blue and brown (ground an "+") and between brown and black and it have current, so I guest the cables are ok.
    My power supply measures 19.6V.
    Right now I don't know what to do.... I'll write the seller about the voltage. This time I was talking with him, he did answer every mail that I sent, but, unfortunately for me, nothing helpful so far.

    iuliusdobre

  11. #11
    Join Date
    Feb 2010
    Posts
    155

    Re: 50W 30x50cm Laser-axle and rotatory accessory problems

    The blue print on the top surface of your controller should tell you what each LED represents. At least it does on mine.

    Sounds like your X home sensor wiring is ok if you have continuity between each end.

    Not sure about the power supply voltage. Since the Y seems to be working I would guess that it isn't the cause of your issue with the X (although it still should be checked out). Maybe you can buy a cheap 24V power supply? I have bought a few here (on Amazon and eBay) in the US for around $35.

    Have you tried resetting the axes using the control panel on the front of the machine? You press the "Z/U" button, then scroll down to "Axis Reset+" and hit the "Enter" button. Then you have the choice of which axis/axes to reset to home. Maybe it will fix the problem? If not, then the only other thing I can think of is a faulty X home sensor, or some software setting that is trying to send the X axes towards the wrong direction.

  12. #12

    Re: 50W 30x50cm Laser-axle and rotatory accessory problems

    Nop, the blueprint isn't there. Please, can you send me a photo with it?
    Yes, I tried to reset the axis. This was the first thing that I've done. No results.
    I'll look for another source and for the home sensor too.

    Hope the seller will give me any solution.

    I'm thinking to open another post about this machine where we could put all the good/bad staff about it. I couldn't find any, so I guess it will help others too. What do you think?

  13. #13
    Join Date
    Feb 2010
    Posts
    155

    Re: 50W 30x50cm Laser-axle and rotatory accessory problems

    Here you go.

    Sure, starting a new thread sounds good. I have made quite a few mods to my laser (dual laser pointers, pin bed, mounted ruler, stepper controlled Z axis) that I can share.

    -robertk925
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails Laser_controller.jpg  

  14. #14

    Re: 50W 30x50cm Laser-axle and rotatory accessory problems

    Thank you for the image!

    At last, I have a possible solution from the seller. He said it is a possible failure of the main board and he'll send me another one.
    From what I see on the image you posted, the axis cables (CN4) are positioned different. At yours are all on CN4, at mine are some on CN1 and the rest on CN4. The blue one is at GND (I guess this doesn't matter), but the brown one, yours is at PUxy, mine is at +24V. When I get home, I'll change the cable.
    Regarding the other post, I'll start it this weekend. I, personally, can't wait to see the details of your mods.

    iuliusdobre

  15. #15

    Re: 50W 30x50cm Laser-axle and rotatory accessory problems

    robertk925, you are right. I have the blue print that you were talking about. I haven't see it from the nose... or I need bigger glasses.
    I just create the other threat... hope you can share you experience.

  16. #16
    Join Date
    May 2016
    Posts
    13

    Re: 50W 30x50cm Laser-axle and rotatory accessory problems

    Hello everyone - Rotary issues.

    Last night I started a successful run of product logos. The rotary table never worked properly. Anything you set on it would 'travel' ever so slightly and mess everything up. So, I bought the stand alone rotary device you can engrave 360. I set everything up ran a few test pieces on some wood dowels for the purpose. No issues and knocked out about 150 logos perfectly. I saved the design in RD works as a file to finish today. I fire up the machine and run a test dowel as I always do and the comparison of the lettering is below. NOTHING was changed. In fact the working file was saved. I restarted the machine, the computer, the software, and it still crunches the lettering and does not operate properly. I had this same issue with the rotary table when it wouldn't allow the piece to travel around. It clearly looks like the stepper motor is moving too slow. I can' t have inconsistencies and need some help, before I go calling the Chinese number and get absolutely nowhere.

    -Kris Attachment 328436

  17. #17
    Join Date
    Feb 2010
    Posts
    155

    Re: 50W 30x50cm Laser-axle and rotatory accessory problems

    Are you sure the part is not "slipping" on the rollers? One solution I saw some people doing was to use rubber o-rings or tape on the rollers to "grip" the part better.

  18. #18

    Re: 50W 30x50cm Laser-axle and rotatory accessory problems

    Did you changed the step length for the x axle?
    Attachment 328470

    From what I see in the image, this seem to be the problem. If it was slipping I think it wouldn't be so "uniform"

  19. #19
    Join Date
    Apr 2015
    Posts
    2

    Re: 50W 30x50cm Laser-axle and rotatory accessory problems

    I use rubber bands and those silicone wrist bands for cancer awareness. I use several layers on the small end os of a glasss and one on the larher end, It makes the glass parallel toi the laser head travel and no slipping. my rotartry works great. I also installes a LED strip on the front under the lid to make more light inside.

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