Issues with K40 Laser Engraver

Hey Folks,

I have a Chinese K40 laser engraver. On occasion the software gets goofy and the laser head will stop in the middle of engraving and go off to one side and start banging against the side rail. This just happened again and now I am having issues with the laser head lining up in the correct position when I start the machine. Also when I kick off the job it will just go to the right rail and continue to bang against it. I tried changing the engraving from horizontal to vertical which seemed to work at first. I was engraving the word "Office" and the OFF would engrave correctly, but when it got to the ICE, it would engrave those letters about 1/8" lower then the first 3 letters.

Anyone have any ideas on the cause of this and how to correct it?

Thanks

hi there
first we need to know what program you have and a few picture would help.
greetings
waltfl

Hi MakinNC
So when you reset the laser and how's it working? the laser reset is normal?
The x-axis and y-axis direction of movements and the speed is ok, right?
At the same time there has touch the both limit switches(not hit limit switch), right?
I think we should make sure the software settings are normal firstly.
Good luck to you

Sincerely
Tom
Thunderlaser- leading provider of laser cutter and laser engraver from China

Attached is a picture. Every time when it gets to the "I" it drops the line down about 1/8".

Also while in the output screen of Moshidraw, when I change the X position it does not always respond by moving the laser head.

What can be causing that?

Attachment 233382

Tom,

using MoshiDraw V 9.92

I'll try to answer your questions.

So when you reset the laser and how's it working? the laser reset is normal?

No, the X axis does not always line up correctly when reseting. It sometimes acts as if it does not know the starting point or resets from the last point instead of going back to 2 and reseting to the X position that I set (usually 39).

The x-axis and y-axis direction of movements and the speed is ok, right?

Y Axis seems to work fine. X axis like I said usually does not respond when I change the X position in the output screen of Moshidraw.


At the same time there has touch the both limit switches(not hit limit switch), right? Not sure what your asking here. When I try to engrave horizontally it will automatically move all the way to the far right X axis point and bang against the side. When I try to engrave vertically, In that example of OFFICE...it will be fine until it gets to the "I" and it will drop the rest of the letters 1/8" down from the OFF in OFFICE.
Attachment 233384

I'm having the same two problems as you. I saw that strange alignment coming from my own laser (SENFENG SF400) and was beginning to think that the laser was moving back and forth too fast and was not able to hold itself in a straight position for more than 4 letters. If I try to engrave too many letters in a row, it will continue to descend lower and lower every few letters and resemble a flight of stairs.

As for the smashing into the sides, I've come to the conclusion that it very likely has something to do with Moshidraw. I turned on just the machine and nothing happens. As soon as I fire up Moshidraw 2014.10, the machine goes haywire and the laser begins smashing into the near right corner of the workspace.

I haven't come to any significant conclusions yet, although I'm searching pretty furiously at the moment. If I make any progress, I'll keep you posted.

I'm having the same two problems as you. I saw that strange alignment coming from my own laser (SENFENG SF400) and was beginning to think that the laser was moving back and forth too fast and was not able to hold itself in a straight position for more than 4 letters. If I try to engrave too many letters in a row, it will continue to descend lower and lower every few letters and resemble a flight of stairs.

As for the smashing into the sides, I've come to the conclusion that it very likely has something to do with Moshidraw. I turned on just the machine and nothing happens. As soon as I fire up Moshidraw 2014.10, the machine goes haywire and the laser begins smashing into the near right corner of the workspace.

I haven't come to any significant conclusions yet, although I'm searching pretty furiously at the moment. If I make any progress, I'll keep you posted.

I've solved one of the problems, at least temporarily. I uninstalled Moshidraw and re-installed it. I then went to Moshidraw.com and downloaded the oldest update that they had available from 2014 (update 2014.7). I've only been using the machine for a couple hours. But so far, the laser hasn't been smashing against the corners of my Senfeng SF400 machine. I tried typing in text and I'm still having the same problem with the letters descending downward. I'm going to try creating text in Photoshop or Coreldraw and sending it over to Moshi to see if that gets rid of the problem. I'll keep you posted.