Default settings with Lightburn is 10% min. This explains now why my first batch of airplane parts I cut did not cut clean at the corners. My laser fires at 12% min. I raised it to 15% on a lot of the most recent ones and it made a huge difference, now the parts fall out. However, now that I see what it is actually doing, it does away with what I thought it was doing and not applying full power all the time, so I have had it raised to min/max of the same values. I can set those down now except for cuts through plywood, those need all the help they can get. I thought it may have something to do with ramp up, but not ramp down, so thanks for clearing that up.
Thanks for all your videos. I haven't even ordered a laser yet but it's great to be able to get some education before I take the plunge. I am planning on getting the 80 watt China model on Ebay.
+Counselor_X With very few exceptions most sellers of Chinese machines on ebay are just middle men to distance the factory from you. When you find out that your 80 watt machine is a 60 watt tube driven by an 80 watt power supply what action can you take? First how will you know its only a 60mwatt tube if you don't have a power meter to measure its out put? Secondly how do you know you are running the tube at it's recommended drive current because none of these machines are fitted with an ammeter? A typical 80 watt tube will be about 1600mm long whereas a 60 watt tube will measure about 1200mm. If you add to these tube dimensions 150mm to fit the first mirror and a 25mm air gap at the HV end and then check if this will fit inside the width of the machine case, this will actually predict what power tube you are actually buying. A secondary confirmation will be to check the packing case size. The final piece of advice is to make sure you buy it with your CREDIT CARD. Ebay and Pay Pal guarantees are almost worthless. It will be good to ask email questions of the vendor before you buy and keep these written answers/promises(along with a screen dump of the ebay advert) because if things go horribly wrong then you can apply to your card supplier for a refund. Your card supplier is legally bound by a whole raft of financial regulations that the Chinese vendor is hoping to bypass. Good luck. It may be painful at times but I'm sure you will get vast enjoyment from your new techno toy Best regards Russ
+SarbarMultimedia All good points! So far I have sent the seller about 10 different emails with questions. I just now asked them about the length and diameter of the tube. I would love for the tube to be great, but I'm trying to be real with myself and I am planning on the possibility of having to replace the tube with one from lightobject. The package size on Ebay is 1560mm in length, so what you're saying could be true. Is there any other way to tell other than the tube size? I see that lightobject has an 80 watt tube in 1625, 1250, and 1200mm lengths. The 1625 is 60mm in diameter while the other 2 are 80mm.
+Counselor_X As you will be aware I'm not in USA but I know folks who have bought Light Object tubes. (no other comments) They source their tubes from SP splaser66.com/enproducts.asp If you check out their products it puzzles me that they don't sell any products matching what Light Object are selling. That's always worrying to me because of my personal experience with COLE Technology. I bought an "OEM" replacement 50 watt tube from them via Ebay only to find it was a 40 watt tube 850 mm long (I knew its length before I bought it but at that time was rather naive about Chinese specifications). When I went to the COLE website, they don't sell a 50 watt tube 850mm long!!! It's undoubtedly as it says, a special OEM overspeced tube for shipping with machines www.aliexpress.com/w/wholesale-sp-laser-tube.html. Take a look at all the blue pictures (marked SP laser) and see that 50=1000mm, 60= 1200mm and 80 =1600mm. Doesn't that make you suspicious? If you have looked at my recent videos you will have seen I bought a fantastic tube direct from China, from a great little company called Mactron. I'm sure there's some sort of link with Reci because their tubes are similar and there quality is beyond words. Most cheap tubes are 2000hour life rated, This was a fairly cheap tube but has a 4000 hour rating My advice is buy the size worktable you want at the cheapest price possible(lowest power tube) and when you have your machine dialed in and have come to hate your rubbish low power tube, spend the money you saved on a reputable power supply and tube upgrade. In the meantime you can experiment away and not be in the least bit worried about the tube. Keep those rose tinted glasses and dreams in the drawer. Go out and give them hell!! Good luck Russ
Great video Russ, I guess I will keep watching for awhile instead of doing :(, my machine turned up with a faulty tube. Worked for a few minutes while I did the alignment. I cut a couple of test squares then the laser stopped working and it had an unstable plasma glow. Checked all the fitting like cables and water flow. Let it cool for an hour, tried again. When it was working , it never went above 15ma at 95% on a 100 watt tube. I got the give them an email on Monday.
+Bradley Mohr Hi Bradley I can feel for you mate. My first tube was rubbish but at least it worked and allowed my to plough on, Good luck with your call for help Regards Russ
I've been setting both max/min to the same values, not really knowing the difference. Thanks for the very detailed (as always) explanation. I definitely need to tweak my min value down. 10% min seems like a good starting point. It seems with all your tests that their must be a way for a software manufacturer to produce some test images that we can input the results of and then the software does some maths to fill in all the other stuff - but that would be too easy for the end user! If only!
Hi Andy In general you are right to set max and min the same. For engraving you must set them the same unless you are 3D engraving and then it is vital to use them. For cutting, keeping them the same will usually be OK but when you use the cut fuction for drwaing lines then you can remove all the burnt corners with careful setting of the min value.. You will need to experiment though,, starting too low when drawing a 25mm test square and graually raing the minimum until the corners of your square just touch. I advise testing because the value will change with speed , Best wishes Russ
Hello, nice vid again. But has this also something to do with the Parameter you can tick called "Laser trough mode" in the Cut settings in RDworks? Matthias
Hi Matthias No, it has nothing to do with Max/Min cutting.This is a feature that is necessary if you have a powerful tube and are going to cut metal with a special head. For our non-metal cutting applications just ignore it and leave it unticked. This software is designed for use with many different types of laser machine and some of the special features will not work on our simple machines. Best Wishes Russ
@@SarbarMultimedia Thanks for the fast answer! I always appriciate your Videos...learning a lot ! I have also another question about why i always get displayed 2 settings for Laser 1 and Laser 2 ( the Min/Max ) settings, even in the RDWorks Software and also in the Machine Display. In the Vendor settings is only one laser ticked. (if the forum is a better place for the question just ignore that ) Matthias
@@StarflightVirtual Hi Matthias I do not have a problem with you asking questions. As I mentioned previously, this software suits all sorts of machines. This version you have will operate machines with TWO different laser tubes. Later software issues support up to SIX lasers per machine.. Just ignore the tube 2 data. If you only have one tube then any numbers in that are there will be ignored .. Only tube 1 data will be actd upon by the controller. Best wishes Russ
I have been watching your videos, I appreciate the help! A quick question, when in the rdworks software everything I draw cuts in reverse. How do I keep from having to flip all my drawings?
+BJ Evans Hi If you watch ua-cam.com/video/CWZvQXxbR_E/v-deo.html it's all explained, but in essence you need to go to CONFIG. SYSTEM SETTING and untick X mirror but leave Y mirror ticked if your machine is normal with the head 0,0 away from you at back left corner of the machine. If your 0,0 is back right, then both X and Y mirrors will be ticked. Thanks for your kind words Best regards Russ
Hi Carlyle You must remember that these sessions are a record of my learning journey and not tutorials from an expert who already knows what he is talking about. After 3 years of learning and gradual discovery about the dark recesses of this technology I am becoming pretty confident with my understanding of most aspect of it's performance.. At this point I had discovered the usefulness of max/min for drawing cut lines into the surface of materials but still did not fully understand why it was working. Take a look at this video done 18 months later when I had more knowledge and more test equipment to throw at the problem. ua-cam.com/video/wJX8X40T4VM/v-deo.html Hope this answers your question. Best wishes Russ
Many Thanks once again for all Your suffering of trials and tribulations to discover and create these videos. For being a gray, fat and ugly Engineer you've done an outstanding job of showing problems, approach to analyzing them and solving them. You may not be an expert but I'm definitely learning how to analyze things and come up with a plan instead of running around like a bull in a china shop. I hope you treat yourself to a nice juicy steak dinner. You more than deserve it. :)
+Bill Frick Hi Bill Thanks for your appreciation. Solving machine issues is now almost a thing of the past as I have a machine that I can just push the button and trust. However, I'm just about to now begin and understand what ENGRAVING is all about, after all this is an engraving machine and I've only just touched on the engraving tools in RDWorks to see what's there , not to exploit them. There's very little information out there about using the machine for it's intended purpose. It's almost as thought it's a closed shop for experts and full of secrets. If there are secrets to be had, I'll try and unearth them logically Best regards Russ
I wonder if maybe you made more work for yourself than you needed to? When the head changes direction at a corner it slows down and briefly stops. Therefore, the beam also needs to ramp down and briefly stop at the corner. A series of lines to find the point at which your tube stops firing should give you your minimum power setting - it’s exactly the power at which the tube no longer produces a beam.
Hi Mark Thanks for the interest but this was a long time ago in my learning journey. About 18 months later I revisited the subject but this time I had purchased a little USB oscilloscope that allowed me to see exactly what was happening. you may like to see what I found. Having owned and used sophisticated metal cutting laser machines in my former businesses, I was familiar with the principle of power attenuation with velocity reduction. I could not imagine that this fairly crude Chinese equipment had such capability see ua-cam.com/video/wJX8X40T4VM/v-deo.html I do no have any sophisticated equipment to decode some of the puzzles I encounter, so I have to be creative with my experiments to see if acute observation of the results leads me towards an answer. Best wishes Russ
+luxaeternae Hi It's certainly spurred me into action on working with wood engraving. I've looked quite hard but there's no one out there prepared to say HOW they are doing wood engraving, or more realistically for me, wood carving. I want to finish up with some real 3D feel to my efforts. That may be unrealistic for this machine, but hey it's worth shooting for. Regards Russ
Default settings with Lightburn is 10% min. This explains now why my first batch of airplane parts I cut did not cut clean at the corners. My laser fires at 12% min. I raised it to 15% on a lot of the most recent ones and it made a huge difference, now the parts fall out. However, now that I see what it is actually doing, it does away with what I thought it was doing and not applying full power all the time, so I have had it raised to min/max of the same values. I can set those down now except for cuts through plywood, those need all the help they can get. I thought it may have something to do with ramp up, but not ramp down, so thanks for clearing that up.
your vid's gave me the courage to take the move and get a machine of 150 w and learn it my self.
thanks
Thanks for all your videos. I haven't even ordered a laser yet but it's great to be able to get some education before I take the plunge. I am planning on getting the 80 watt China model on Ebay.
+Counselor_X
With very few exceptions most sellers of Chinese machines on ebay are just middle men to distance the factory from you. When you find out that your 80 watt machine is a 60 watt tube driven by an 80 watt power supply what action can you take? First how will you know its only a 60mwatt tube if you don't have a power meter to measure its out put? Secondly how do you know you are running the tube at it's recommended drive current because none of these machines are fitted with an ammeter? A typical 80 watt tube will be about 1600mm long whereas a 60 watt tube will measure about 1200mm. If you add to these tube dimensions 150mm to fit the first mirror and a 25mm air gap at the HV end and then check if this will fit inside the width of the machine case, this will actually predict what power tube you are actually buying. A secondary confirmation will be to check the packing case size.
The final piece of advice is to make sure you buy it with your CREDIT CARD. Ebay and Pay Pal guarantees are almost worthless. It will be good to ask email questions of the vendor before you buy and keep these written answers/promises(along with a screen dump of the ebay advert) because if things go horribly wrong then you can apply to your card supplier for a refund. Your card supplier is legally bound by a whole raft of financial regulations that the Chinese vendor is hoping to bypass.
Good luck. It may be painful at times but I'm sure you will get vast enjoyment from your new techno toy
Best regards
Russ
+SarbarMultimedia All good points! So far I have sent the seller about 10 different emails with questions. I just now asked them about the length and diameter of the tube. I would love for the tube to be great, but I'm trying to be real with myself and I am planning on the possibility of having to replace the tube with one from lightobject. The package size on Ebay is 1560mm in length, so what you're saying could be true. Is there any other way to tell other than the tube size? I see that lightobject has an 80 watt tube in 1625, 1250, and 1200mm lengths. The 1625 is 60mm in diameter while the other 2 are 80mm.
+Counselor_X
As you will be aware I'm not in USA but I know folks who have bought Light Object tubes. (no other comments) They source their tubes from SP splaser66.com/enproducts.asp If you check out their products it puzzles me that they don't sell any products matching what Light Object are selling. That's always worrying to me because of my personal experience with COLE Technology. I bought an "OEM" replacement 50 watt tube from them via Ebay only to find it was a 40 watt tube 850 mm long (I knew its length before I bought it but at that time was rather naive about Chinese specifications). When I went to the COLE website, they don't sell a 50 watt tube 850mm long!!! It's undoubtedly as it says, a special OEM overspeced tube for shipping with machines
www.aliexpress.com/w/wholesale-sp-laser-tube.html.
Take a look at all the blue pictures (marked SP laser) and see that 50=1000mm, 60= 1200mm and 80 =1600mm. Doesn't that make you suspicious?
If you have looked at my recent videos you will have seen I bought a fantastic tube direct from China, from a great little company called Mactron. I'm sure there's some sort of link with Reci because their tubes are similar and there quality is beyond words. Most cheap tubes are 2000hour life rated, This was a fairly cheap tube but has a 4000 hour rating
My advice is buy the size worktable you want at the cheapest price possible(lowest power tube) and when you have your machine dialed in and have come to hate your rubbish low power tube, spend the money you saved on a reputable power supply and tube upgrade. In the meantime you can experiment away and not be in the least bit worried about the tube.
Keep those rose tinted glasses and dreams in the drawer. Go out and give them hell!!
Good luck
Russ
A nice thorough approach.
I have gotta share this.
Great video Russ, I guess I will keep watching for awhile instead of doing :(, my machine turned up with a faulty tube. Worked for a few minutes while I did the alignment. I cut a couple of test squares then the laser stopped working and it had an unstable plasma glow. Checked all the fitting like cables and water flow. Let it cool for an hour, tried again. When it was working , it never went above 15ma at 95% on a 100 watt tube. I got the give them an email on Monday.
+Bradley Mohr
Hi Bradley
I can feel for you mate. My first tube was rubbish but at least it worked and allowed my to plough on, Good luck with your call for help
Regards
Russ
I've been setting both max/min to the same values, not really knowing the difference. Thanks for the very detailed (as always) explanation. I definitely need to tweak my min value down. 10% min seems like a good starting point. It seems with all your tests that their must be a way for a software manufacturer to produce some test images that we can input the results of and then the software does some maths to fill in all the other stuff - but that would be too easy for the end user! If only!
Hi Andy
In general you are right to set max and min the same. For engraving you must set them the same unless you are 3D engraving and then it is vital to use them.
For cutting, keeping them the same will usually be OK but when you use the cut fuction for drwaing lines then you can remove all the burnt corners with careful setting of the min value.. You will need to experiment though,, starting too low when drawing a 25mm test square and graually raing the minimum until the corners of your square just touch. I advise testing because the value will change with speed ,
Best wishes
Russ
I use min/max then i cut papaer, Sometimes then there is to many corners and curls, i go down in min, and then my papercurtting works.
Same machine.
Hello,
nice vid again.
But has this also something to do with the Parameter you can tick called "Laser trough mode" in the Cut settings in RDworks?
Matthias
Hi Matthias
No, it has nothing to do with Max/Min cutting.This is a feature that is necessary if you have a powerful tube and are going to cut metal with a special head. For our non-metal cutting applications just ignore it and leave it unticked. This software is designed for use with many different types of laser machine and some of the special features will not work on our simple machines.
Best Wishes
Russ
@@SarbarMultimedia Thanks for the fast answer! I always appriciate your Videos...learning a lot !
I have also another question about why i always get displayed 2 settings for Laser 1 and Laser 2 ( the Min/Max ) settings, even in the RDWorks Software and also in the Machine Display.
In the Vendor settings is only one laser ticked.
(if the forum is a better place for the question just ignore that )
Matthias
@@StarflightVirtual
Hi Matthias
I do not have a problem with you asking questions. As I mentioned previously, this software suits all sorts of machines. This version you have will operate machines with TWO different laser tubes. Later software issues support up to SIX lasers per machine.. Just ignore the tube 2 data. If you only have one tube then any numbers in that are there will be ignored .. Only tube 1 data will be actd upon by the controller.
Best wishes
Russ
I have been watching your videos, I appreciate the help! A quick question, when in the rdworks software everything I draw cuts in reverse. How do I keep from having to flip all my drawings?
+BJ Evans
Hi
If you watch ua-cam.com/video/CWZvQXxbR_E/v-deo.html it's all explained, but in essence you need to go to CONFIG. SYSTEM SETTING and untick X mirror but leave Y mirror ticked if your machine is normal with the head 0,0 away from you at back left corner of the machine. If your 0,0 is back right, then both X and Y mirrors will be ticked.
Thanks for your kind words
Best regards
Russ
+SarbarMultimedia thanks again, you have been a great help.
So is it taboo to discuss your min max settings? It’s like we want to help but at the same time we don’t.
Hi Carlyle
You must remember that these sessions are a record of my learning journey and not tutorials from an expert who already knows what he is talking about. After 3 years of learning and gradual discovery about the dark recesses of this technology I am becoming pretty confident with my understanding of most aspect of it's performance.. At this point I had discovered the usefulness of max/min for drawing cut lines into the surface of materials but still did not fully understand why it was working. Take a look at this video done 18 months later when I had more knowledge and more test equipment to throw at the problem.
ua-cam.com/video/wJX8X40T4VM/v-deo.html
Hope this answers your question.
Best wishes
Russ
Many Thanks once again for all Your suffering of trials and tribulations to discover and create these videos. For being a gray, fat and ugly Engineer you've done an outstanding job of showing problems, approach to analyzing them and solving them. You may not be an expert but I'm definitely learning how to analyze things and come up with a plan instead of running around like a bull in a china shop. I hope you treat yourself to a nice juicy steak dinner. You more than deserve it. :)
+Bill Frick
Hi Bill
Thanks for your appreciation. Solving machine issues is now almost a thing of the past as I have a machine that I can just push the button and trust. However, I'm just about to now begin and understand what ENGRAVING is all about, after all this is an engraving machine and I've only just touched on the engraving tools in RDWorks to see what's there , not to exploit them. There's very little information out there about using the machine for it's intended purpose. It's almost as thought it's a closed shop for experts and full of secrets. If there are secrets to be had, I'll try and unearth them logically
Best regards
Russ
Thank you! Great videos!
I wonder if maybe you made more work for yourself than you needed to? When the head changes direction at a corner it slows down and briefly stops. Therefore, the beam also needs to ramp down and briefly stop at the corner. A series of lines to find the point at which your tube stops firing should give you your minimum power setting - it’s exactly the power at which the tube no longer produces a beam.
Hi Mark
Thanks for the interest but this was a long time ago in my learning journey. About 18 months later I revisited the subject but this time I had purchased a little USB oscilloscope that allowed me to see exactly what was happening. you may like to see what I found. Having owned and used sophisticated metal cutting laser machines in my former businesses, I was familiar with the principle of power attenuation with velocity reduction. I could not imagine that this fairly crude Chinese equipment had such capability
see ua-cam.com/video/wJX8X40T4VM/v-deo.html
I do no have any sophisticated equipment to decode some of the puzzles I encounter, so I have to be creative with my experiments to see if acute observation of the results leads me towards an answer.
Best wishes
Russ
congratulations. all the tests to find the correct min power were worth the effort.
+luxaeternae
Hi
It's certainly spurred me into action on working with wood engraving. I've looked quite hard but there's no one out there prepared to say HOW they are doing wood engraving, or more realistically for me, wood carving. I want to finish up with some real 3D feel to my efforts. That may be unrealistic for this machine, but hey it's worth shooting for.
Regards
Russ
LOL Higgs Bosson.