Letterville Bull Board Letterville | Bull Board
 


 

Front Page
A Letterhead History
About Us
Become A Resident
Edit Your Database Info
Find A Letterhead

Letterville Merchants
Resident Downloads
Letterville BookShop
Future Live Meets
Past Meets
Step-By-Steps
Past Panel Swaps
Past SOTM
Letterhead Profiles
Business Cards
Become A Merchant

Click on the button
below to chat with other
Letterville users.

http://www.letterville.com/ubb/chaticon.gif

Steve & Barb Shortreed
144 Hill St., E.
Fergus, ON, Canada
N1M 1G9

Phone: 519-787-2892
Fax: 519-787-2673
Email: barb@letterville.com

Copyright ©1995-2008
The Letterhead Website

 

 

The Letterville BullBoard Post New Topic  New Poll  Post A Reply
my profile login | search | faq | calendar | im | forum home

  next oldest topic   next newest topic
» The Letterville BullBoard » Letterhead/Pinstriper Talk » Laser engraver issues: M-300 Universal Systems

 - UBBFriend: Email this page to someone!    
Author Topic: Laser engraver issues: M-300 Universal Systems
Ian Stewart-Koster
Resident


Member # 3500

Icon 1 posted      Profile for Ian Stewart-Koster   Author's Homepage   Email Ian Stewart-Koster   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post   Reply With Quote 
Most people here might know by now I'm a bit of a 'fix it yourself' person wherever possible. Burning out servos and drives diagnosing the problems and getting them going again with our cnc router has been an interesting adventure- and no problems in the last 18 months, touch wood! That was all a servo control system.

However, I recently bought a laser engraver. 2nd hand. 45 watt. Made by Universal Systems in USA.
It was built in 2002, but the tube was renewed in 2012.
This runs on stepper motors.

All was fine, till tonight, and suddenly the Y axis movement failed to happen.
If you go into XY setup, homing and set a new origin, you can drive the lens all over the bed along the X axis, but it groans and gurgles and struggles when you try to move it in Y direction.
It eventually won't go any further as it's convinced you're at one of the limits, when in fact it's sitting in the middle of the bed.

I got into diagnostics and it said Y error.
I rebooted it, and in diagnostics is said X & Y: OK.
I tried to steer it around the bed - and same problem - little or no activity in Y direction.

The belt is fine.
The gears are OK.
The stepper motor is OK - I swapped it with another, and the judding and groaning happened to that - leaving me thinking it's electronic, somehow.

There's no difference between booting it up connected to the PC, or starting it not connected at all - and trying to use the arrow keys to test the axes...

I turned it off again, twice, and rehomed it, and all was good for 5 minutes, then back to tricks again.

I was wondering if anyone here might have had something with similar issues, and knows the answer?
Tomorrow I'll take a torch inside it and see if there's a loose lead half-plugged in, or something.

I don't believe the issues is with the driver, nor the print file.

--------------------
"Stewey" on chat

"...there are no limits when you aim for perfection..." Jonathan Livingston Seagull

Posts: 7014 | From: Highgrove via Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia | Registered: Dec 2002  |  IP: Logged | Report this post to a Moderator
Wayne Webb
Resident


Member # 1124

Icon 1 posted      Profile for Wayne Webb   Author's Homepage   Email Wayne Webb   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post   Reply With Quote 
A laser...cool!
I'm no expert on this, Ian, but it sounds like a possible stepper "resonance" problem. If your motor and mechanicals are OK, I would check the motor's settings in the driver software. Are you using Mach3 or something else? I would also, double check the DIP switch settings on the driver for that motor and make sure they are in the correct positions. That's all I can think of right now.
Hope you get it working.

--------------------
Wayne Webb
Webb Signworks
Chipley, FL
850.638.9329
wayne@webbsignworks.com

Posts: 7403 | From: Chipley,Florida,United States | Registered: Oct 1999  |  IP: Logged | Report this post to a Moderator
Ian Stewart-Koster
Resident


Member # 3500

Icon 1 posted      Profile for Ian Stewart-Koster   Author's Homepage   Email Ian Stewart-Koster   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post   Reply With Quote 
Thanks Wayne,
to me it seems like some feedback problem too.
However, I know my way around servos and encoders, but I'm not as aufait with steppers and how they're locked into position & feedback circuitry.

I draw in Corel Draw, in a bed size the same as the laser (24 x 12 inch) with a RGB colour pallet of 8 colours plus grey/black and import JPGs or BMPs into Corel, and then when ready, go File>Print>M300,
and then go into Properties for the M300 laser, to load a profile for the power settings for the particular substrate, (eg 3mm acrylic, 4.5mm acrylic, 1.6mm engraveable plastic etc) and
Click OK.

That sends the file to the laser.

From the laser you select the file from a list of files sent to it, and can reset or rehome the origins if needed, then press 'start' and it runs that file.

The way it works from Corel draw is that all black items are raster engraved (shallow) on a higher speed, lower power setting, with the lens moving back and forth till it gets to the end.
blue hairlines are vector engraved, running arund the outlines, cutting to a shallow depth, ag half power, full speed.
Red lines are vector cut full depth, right through, eg 1/3 max power, but at a speed of say 2%.

You can assign different depths or speeds and power settings to the 8 colours, and that's how the machine interprets the colours. You set it up in the driver file, before pressing Print.

I have a heap of 'profiles' already set up for glass, acrylic, and whatever, whatever so you just load the profile, and double-check if you want any rasters as halftones, or black & white, or a mezzotint look, and double-check the quality setting versus speed.

I don't believe the problem is in the software coming from the PC.

The machine struggles to let me move the carriage with the keypad arrow keys- as if the CPU is telling the stepper motor it is not allowed to move.

Turn it off, and you can move them freely.
It's not a bearing or belt problem.
Swap out the stepper motor-same issue.

Try and drive the carriage around with the arrow pad keys, and it gets to what it thinks is the 12" vertical limit and won't let you try further-all the while it didn't move more than a mm anyhow, but it seemed to think it did.

I'll try removing & reseating RAM chips and all leads today.

DIP switches ? have not found any yet! BUT it was lasering quite well before it went into nutty mode.

Warranty? Nil. I bought it 2nd hand. The former owner never had any such issues, and it worked fine for me till now.

There's not much to go wrong physically normally - the steppers and lenses are under scant load as they just reflect the laser beam - it's not as if the substrate can resist the beam's being reflected and make it hard on the motors!

Thanks for the ideas though!

--------------------
"Stewey" on chat

"...there are no limits when you aim for perfection..." Jonathan Livingston Seagull

Posts: 7014 | From: Highgrove via Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia | Registered: Dec 2002  |  IP: Logged | Report this post to a Moderator
Wayne Webb
Resident


Member # 1124

Icon 1 posted      Profile for Wayne Webb   Author's Homepage   Email Wayne Webb   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post   Reply With Quote 
Hmmm, I don't know beans about lasers. Maybe the machine's parameters have been accidentally reset in the software, which would account for the stopping at 12". As to those other movement problems, I haven't a clue other than a bad driver or section on the interface circuitboard. The dip switches would be located inside the machine's controller and I would assume your machine has only 3 of these. But that doesn't sound like your problem to me. Ian, you might find answers here. http://www.cnczone.com/forums/general-laser-engraving-cutting-machine-discussion/

If not, try here. https://www.facebook.com/groups/cncroutertips/

--------------------
Wayne Webb
Webb Signworks
Chipley, FL
850.638.9329
wayne@webbsignworks.com

Posts: 7403 | From: Chipley,Florida,United States | Registered: Oct 1999  |  IP: Logged | Report this post to a Moderator
Rusty Bradley
Resident


Member # 6938

Icon 1 posted      Profile for Rusty Bradley   Email Rusty Bradley   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post   Reply With Quote 
See...I told you Wayne was a genius.

--------------------
Rusty Bradley
Bradley Sign Studio
100 Creekview Road
Summertown, Tn. 38483

Posts: 2179 | From: Summertown, Tennessee | Registered: Nov 2006  |  IP: Logged | Report this post to a Moderator
Ian Stewart-Koster
Resident


Member # 3500

Icon 1 posted      Profile for Ian Stewart-Koster   Author's Homepage   Email Ian Stewart-Koster   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post   Reply With Quote 
Thanks, Wayne - It's not the router though. That's fine. It's the laser engraver, which is vaguely similar in its operation, as far as being cnc-controlled.

CNCzone forums, I've been over, and no similar situation's been listed.
Sawmillcreek.org is a bit better - but nothing the same.

It stops at 12" as that's the bed Y axis length.
But it only thinks its at the edge, when it isn;t.
I had the motherboard out - all axis drives are on the single motherboard. No dip swithces.
I did find a lead half out, like an old IDE hard drive lead , and I replugged it - no difference.
I reset/flashed the firmware also- no difference.

I also connected the rotary attachment - which makes Y rotate, or replaces Y with a rotation - and that worked fine, but the motherboard sensed the rotary attachment was plugged in.
It's only the Y axis stepper controlling that seems to be the issue...

--------------------
"Stewey" on chat

"...there are no limits when you aim for perfection..." Jonathan Livingston Seagull

Posts: 7014 | From: Highgrove via Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia | Registered: Dec 2002  |  IP: Logged | Report this post to a Moderator
Ian Stewart-Koster
Resident


Member # 3500

Icon 1 posted      Profile for Ian Stewart-Koster   Author's Homepage   Email Ian Stewart-Koster   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post   Reply With Quote 
I decided that since it was OK with rotary files, I'd run a couple - and after 'homing' it 5 times till it homed properly, it then worked normally.
So I went back to cutting acrylic- the file that alerted me to the problem last night - and it did it contentedly...

So touch wood it stays like that, but somehow it's now been coaxed back to normality.

--------------------
"Stewey" on chat

"...there are no limits when you aim for perfection..." Jonathan Livingston Seagull

Posts: 7014 | From: Highgrove via Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia | Registered: Dec 2002  |  IP: Logged | Report this post to a Moderator
Wayne Webb
Resident


Member # 1124

Icon 1 posted      Profile for Wayne Webb   Author's Homepage   Email Wayne Webb   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post   Reply With Quote 
Great, glad you got it going Ian. Have fun!

--------------------
Wayne Webb
Webb Signworks
Chipley, FL
850.638.9329
wayne@webbsignworks.com

Posts: 7403 | From: Chipley,Florida,United States | Registered: Oct 1999  |  IP: Logged | Report this post to a Moderator
Ian Stewart-Koster
Resident


Member # 3500

Icon 1 posted      Profile for Ian Stewart-Koster   Author's Homepage   Email Ian Stewart-Koster   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post   Reply With Quote 
I'm thinking it must have been a possible iffy break or crack in a wire leading to the stepper- and not a drive or CPU problem, because they would not fix themselves occasionally.
Today it worked fine it does a great job cutting great detail in 10mm acrylic on one pass.

--------------------
"Stewey" on chat

"...there are no limits when you aim for perfection..." Jonathan Livingston Seagull

Posts: 7014 | From: Highgrove via Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia | Registered: Dec 2002  |  IP: Logged | Report this post to a Moderator
   

Quick Reply
Message:

HTML is not enabled.
UBB Code™ is enabled.

Instant Graemlins
   


Post New Topic  New Poll  Post A Reply Close Topic   Feature Topic   Move Topic   Delete Topic next oldest topic   next newest topic
 - Printer-friendly view of this topic
Hop To:


Contact Us | Letterville. A Community Of Letterheads & Pinheads!

Powered by Infopop Corporation
UBB.classic™ 6.7.2

Search For Sign Supplies
Category:
 

                  

Letterhead Suppliers Around the World