I’m getting my new Avid laser deployment system up and running. It has the 45 watt Opt laser. I’m curious to know if there is a way to adjust the laser power when calibrating the X-Y offset. I have the laser switched to the low power setting but when I make a mark with the v-bit in the spindle and then activate the laser in CNC12 to align the laser dot to the mark in the spoil board the laser intensity is enough that it is burning the MDF spoil board faster than I can get the dot aligned to the hole. It seems the laser power is a bit too high for this operation.
Eric. I originally set up the laser in the Acorn Wizard as “custom”. It was my understanding from tech support that this is what was needed to set the proper nozzle height for the XT8. I reverted back to the 15W laser and it seemed to do the same thing.
I was reading the Opt adapter manual and tried a manual test fire directly from the Opt adapter, but nothing seemed to happen regardless what duty cycle percentage I set.
I tried the standard operation again for XY calibration and the laser intensity was much lower. Not sure if there was any relation. This got me pretty close and I figured I would just engrave some short vertical and horizontal lines (X and Y) and manually adjust the offset distances in the Wizard to get it dialed in.
I ran the file a few times last night but noticed on the first try the spindle and the laser powered on, but the laser did not deploy. The V bit cut the lines, spindle raised and stopped, laser deployed and then the laser turned off. It them moved to the offset as it should, powered back on and burned as planned. I thought that was strange so I hit cycle start again and everything worked as it should. I hit cycle start a third time and the laser fired again when the spindle started.
It was getting late so I shut everything down for the night and will try again later today and see what happens after a complete system and PC reboot.
The advice support gave you was fine. The key is that you want custom nozzle settings. Choosing “custom” or “15 Watt” enables the laser PWM which is the most important part. If you don’t have that on your laser will fire at full power regardless of power setting. That could have been why you had trouble doing the XY calibration
That’s interesting… as that test bypasses the Avid control box entirely. I wonder if there’s something wrong with the way you have things plugged in, or the way you are starting that test…
I’m a little confused by this.. let me see if I follow:
You had a toolpath to cut with a V bit, and then you had one that was for the laser. The goal being to see if the laser cut in the same path as the V bit?
If that’s the case, did you have your tool numbers set correctly? Your V bit would have to have been a tool number 1-98 and your laser HAS to be tool 99 (unless you specifically changed that, but very unlikely you did)
That is correct Eric. The file was simply a 3/4" vertical line -Y that turned 90 degrees and ran 3/4" in +X. The cut depth was .015" with a Whiteside SC71 bit. The bit was numbered as Tool 1. The laser was assigned Tool 99. The goal was to see how the laser line corresponded to the light engraving so that I could make small XY offset changes in the Wizard.
Now, that said, I did arm the laser prior to running the file (both the profile and laser toolpaths were saved to one file). I assumed this is correct. I do have the laser firing warning turned on so when the spindle stops I have to confirm before the laser operation begins.
May just be a gremlin, not sure. I did shut everything down including the PC to try again later with a fresh reboot on everything.
Sorry for being scattered here, but I’m half listening to a conference call while I was replying earlier.
Regarding the initial setup in the Wizard, I did have it set to custom which retained all the same information at the 15 watt setup except I changed the nozzle height to .409". I tested the deployment and it sits perfectly where the 21mm height gauge just fits under the shroud as shown in the Opt documentation. I had done a number of test burns prior to configuring the XY offset and had no problems. Power percentages seemed to work fine and the laser functioned flawlessly.
I’ll have to try the test burn through the Opt adapter again. I went into Utils and deployed the laser, then got to the test screen on the Opt adapter and set the duty cycle to 35% and pushed and held the button in, but nothing happened. Up upped the duty cycle to 100% and again nothing happened when pushing the button. Though after playing with the test in the Opt adapter, when I tried the XY offset again, the laser power was much lower than previously tested with it configured both as custom and 15W in the Wizard.
I’m sure this is all user error not fully understanding the process. But the resources here certainly help me keep my sanity when I can’t figure something out.
Circling back to this issue as I have not tried to combine spindle and laser operations since this last discussion.
After extending my table by 2’ I’m getting everything squared, trammed, and calibrated. I just set up the laser and calibrated xy as well as calibrated the height using the Utils menu.
I was going to double check the spindle/laser xy offset by routing a small oval and a small circle then burn a line 1/16” offset from the other features to get an eye on alignment. I haven’t yet uploaded the G code and ran a spindle warm up while the laser was powered (button pushed on the Opt controller, red light on and fan running - NOT DEPLOYED). As in previous instances when I clicked cycle start to run the spindle warm up the laser fired as well. I’m not sure what is causing this but it seems it shouldn’t fire until it is deployed and tool #99 is called.
Previously when running a spindle/router job the laser would fire when the spindle started and stay on throughout the spindle code. When the Z axis raised and the spindle shut off, the laser would turn off, then deploy like it should, and the laser would fire again to burn the features.
We’ve gone through the set up and all is good. Maybe an issue in the laser box? If so, I’m getting the new Aux Box with the ATC when it ships so it will be replaced. But if it is something else it may be good to get it sorted out.
Further information. Previously when I started this thread I was using the Avid 4 HP spindle. I have since upgraded to the AV40S. I decided to run the simple code after sending the last message and noticed a difference from the previous issue. This time the laser fired, but did not deploy when the AV40S spindle started and stayed on throughout the 15 second cut. The Z axis moved up, spindle turned off. As the spindle was winding down the laser light was flickering a little. When the air solenoid valve in the spindle popped the laser turned off completely, then back on again to burn the features. The first time I ran it once the spindle solenoid popped, the laser turned off completely and didn’t burn anything. I turned the laser power off and back on again, then it burned the features, but the issue with the laser being on while the spindle is running remains.
Correct. When the laser module is armed it fires when the spindle starts. It even fires when armed during the spindle warm up cycle with a job that has no T99 code loaded. During the spindle warn up cycle I had a spindle job only loaded using T4 only and no T99 code. To be clear, by “fires” I mean i can see the blue laser diode lines on the spoil board, though way out of focus due to the laser not being “deployed”.
Would you say it’s firing at a very low power? Or is it at a power level that it could actually burn material?
I’ll do some digging, but I would say that for the short term just disable the laser with the red button and only turn it on when you’re doing laser work. This is typically what I do, and I leave the “warn before firing laser” checkbox checked in the wizard to remind me to turn the laser on.
It appears to be firing at a lower power level. I’ll check against some test firing and see if I can roughly assume the power percentage.
I’ve only done some testing with a single file using both the spindle and the laser. Primarily to double check the xy offset for the laser to make micro adjustments. I only arm the laser when I plan to use it when running a file. Since I don’t use it much, I often don’t even power up the laser control box. I know this will change when I replace it with the Aux Box with the laser controls built into it.
This is not a big issue for me, just something I noticed that seemed to be abnormal from how I would think it should function.
Does it do it in both laser switch positions (i.e. I and II)?
I have noticed the XT-8 is a bit sensitive to power supply noise and can have a little bit of very low power firing if the laser is enabled sometimes. I saw this more on the old controller, not as much on the EX controller.
With mine it only does it in the low power switch setting. It appears that when all 8 diodes are enabled it pulls enough current to keep the noise down and the laser doesn’t fire at all.
Jim, I can confirm it was in the low setting (I) just the other day when I had the issue. I’ll give it a try on the high setting sometime today and see what happens.
This actually makes sense as to why the laser was flickering while the spindle slowed down and stopped firing when the spindle stopped.
I haven’t had a chance yet to try to assume the power of the laser when it fires but I should be able to get to it tonight or in the morning to see if power supply noise is the culprit and report back.
Jim, I think you are onto something here. I just ran a spindle warm up with the laser armed on the low laser setting and the diode is on. I stopped it and switched the laser into high mode and started the spindle warm up again, the laser diode is no longer on. I went back to low mode and ran the spindle warm up and held a piece of pine at roughly the focal distance of the laser and it wouldn’t even make a mark, so it is obviously very low power.
Eric and Avid team, is there a solution to this? Is there any cause for concern about the laser module wearing our faster for perhaps other harm to the module due to this?
I’m just thinking about a multi part job where the spindle will run multiple tool paths before a final tool path using the laser. Not a huge deal to pay attention and arm the laser prior to the laser path running, but thinking of convenience with a full ATC system.
Just a side note on this. The new laser adapter (Pro) that comes with the XT-8 actually has a remote arm control input. Whenever I get some time I’m planning on hooking that up and making a laser arm macro so I can arm my laser from the CNC12 console instead of getting up to push the button.
Its not that I’m that lazy, I just don’t like listening to the laser’s fan so I want to only have it armed when it needs to be.
I agree on the sound of the fan. The AV40S spindle is quieter than the laser fan.
I wonder, and I’m no electronics guy, but could the output of the laser control module be run through some form of relay that would let you physically arm the laser such that it can be disarmed for safety, but somehow the control system activates a relay or something actually allowing the power to reach the laser head? Again just thinking of a full 10 tool plus laser ATC.