Issues

[MartinMakes]

Hi all

I could use some help!!

I have recently purchased a laser engraver and am having a few issues

1) The only way the motor on the right side axis moves is if I loosen the belt. It feels like it is far too loose to be doing much good but if I tighten it even the slightest bit the motor just judders or doesn't move at all

2) Sometimes when I turn the machine on the laser comes on straight away and sometimes it comes on when I start the engraving

3) .... sometimes it doesn't come on at all - the motors and axis move into position and the laser moves as if its working but there is no laser

4) Can someone tell me what corner of the frame the motors should "start" at automatically as at the moment they want to start in the bottom left corner but then print the image rotated 90° anticlockwise and mirrored

The instructions provided in the box and with the software aren't really helping much so any help would be hugely appreciated

Thanks
Martin

[MartinMakes]

Also, just to add that we have managed to engrave some images (albeit back to front) but now when the laser does work it starts the image then after about 15 seconds just creates a straight line that it goes over and over to the various widths of the image

[ggallant571]

It would help if you supplied some info regrading specific machine and host software.

The typical motor used on diode laser etchers is called a NEMA 17 stepper motor. There are three signals from the CPU to invoke motion Enable, Step & Direction. The motors are typically driven by little stepper motor driver boards although the chips may be embedded on the main board. These driver boards include a current limiting circuit that needs to be tuned to the job. Too much current and things overheat, too little and they stall. There is usually and adjustable trim pot used to set the limit. Each specific driver chip has a different tuning scheme. For a chip driving 1 motor you might want to set for 1A, for a chip driving 2 motors perhaps 1.5A.