Lightobject.com Support Forum

Hello everybody,

I don't know if someone in here has experienced this problem before but I need some help, I finished building a laser cutter/engraver using the 2011 version DSP controller, everything works fine except when I try to engrave a picture that´s not in vector format, say BMP, or JPEG, the engrave option gets automatically selected, i specify speed, power and scan gap as I do when I engrave a vector format picture (which works correctly by the way), but when I start the job the machine keeps on scanning the same line, it doent move the scan gap distance for each line, it keeps engraving on the same line, I don't know if I'm explaining this correctly, my english is not very good, I'll try to post a video of the problem, If someone knows the solution to this problem please tell me what I'm doing wrong.

Another problem I noticed in the software is that it is impossible to do Y_Swing engraving, my machine has a really big and heavy gantry (the machine's usable cutting area is about 2x3m) and the X axis moves the gantry so If I engrave on the X axis I have to do it a LOT slower, i can do Y_unilateralism engraving just fine but the option for Y_Swing is not available, I'd be glad if I could do swing engraving for the Y axis since that would reduce the time it takes to finish the job by half. my version of PHCAD is 4.47 downloaded from this site.

Thank you for your help.

Fernando

Hello Fernando,
Welcome !

I'm not too sure about the X swing problem you have but it usually is just a software problem if the rest of it works ok. You need to go through and check all the settings as well as the hidden ones that aren't immediately available. Some screen grabs would help.
I'm not near the laser right now and I have the latest version so I won't be much help posting pictures of my setup for you.

For the other problem, Could you swap the X motor wires for the Y motor wires and just swap the axis' around. The software would still work the same but you would just have to place your work at 90 deg which wouldn't be too much of a thing to get used to.
Just a thought.

Your English is fine. We get used to a lot of different languages here and most times it isn't too difficult to get the idea the person is putting forward. If they can't explain things properly then they just need to take a screen grab or photo of the problem and someone here will generally work it out for you.

Thank you for your help, I could easily swap the motor driver's cables but the machine is not for me, it's for a client and I already installed the user interface in a fixed place so if I swap axis then, when the user presses the right key the machine will move up, when he presses the up key the machine will go right, my guess is that he will be a little frustrated with that behavior so I don't want to do that.

http://www.mypicx.com/12022011/Yswing_not_there/

There's a screen grab of the Y_swing problem i mentioned.

The other problem about the machine engraving only a single line is really weird, I double checked every configuration window in the software but I don't find anything related to this... Maybe I'm not seeing well

What's the correct process for engraving a picture in jpeg format for example?

What I do is:

- open PHCAD
- select the import option in the file menu
- select the file i want to engrave
- in the toolbar on the right I automatically get a black color layer that says BMP, I set the engraving parameters as you can see in the following picture:

http://www.mypicx.com/12022011/Engrave_settings/

- I download the file to the controller
- I press start

The engraving process starts but the machine keeps on firing the laser over the same line, the process finishes and the result is a single burnt line on the material, no matter what value I put in the scan gap, this doesn't happen when i engrave a vector file from autocad or corel draw, it only happens with pixel formats (if that's their name).

Have you tried the second X_Swing in the list? I wonder if it's just mislabeled.

Yes, It does X_Swing just as if I selected the first option