double image

[james burchfield]

I am having a problem with our laser pro explorer 2 and would appreciate any help anyone could give.
Currently I am making 3.5"x2" business cards and am experiencing a slight but very noticeable double image effect in particularly the letters.

[Steve Clarkson]

Jim, it would be very helpful to all if you could post a picture so everyone can see what you're talking about....and also what programs (Corel, etc.) that you're using.

[Mike Mackenzie]

This is more than likely a belt wear issue although I do not work with this equipment when we see a double image with our equipment 99% of the time it has to do with belt wear. Try moving your image to a different location on the engraver and see if the double imaging improves.

[Mike Page]

We have the same problem with ours. Same machine, small font looks doubled size 10 and under. Just the letters for us.

[james burchfield]

ive tried posting pics of the double image but im not able to even in a zip file they come out to big to post. i tried it in 3 different places on the table and still get a double image. i am using corel and have tried it on 2 different computers.

the double images are side by side and its both image and text, it puts a double image side by side partially overlaping. you can really tell on the i's the double dots otherwise the letters look mostly like there bolded and pressed together

[Mike Null]

James

Take a look at your drawing in the wireframe view to see if there is a problem with the drawing.

Try reducing your power and speed. DPI should be no higher than 500.

If these don't help then I think M. Mckenzie is on to the solution.

[Andy Joe]

I have a kern laser and im not sure if it would be the same adjustment for you but when i had this problem i was told the belt thing as well, and i checked and double checked but i couldnt find slack or wear in the teeth. I did some playing around and changing my ramp start and stop for small letters fixed the problem but i had to change back for larger letters.

[Peck Sidara]

James,

Sounds like a mechanical issue to me, not knowing exactly how this machine is built, I'd check the following that applies:

Belt tension, perhaps the belt's too loose.
Motor pulley/cog is gunked up with dirt/debris
Loose motor pulley/cog
Faulty x-motor
Worn roller bearings or rail assembly
Loose carriage assembly
Loose optic
Faulty optic, perhaps a slight crack or pit in lens or mirror is causing the beam to split into two smaller beams
Laser beam alignemt, perhaps the laser beam is reflecting/refracting off something causing two distinct beams.

Does it help if you slow the machine down? If so, this is an indicator of something mechanical.

HTH

[Rodne Gold]

first thing I would so is Check the tickle/trickle voltage , if this manifests itself more on materials like Rowmark flexibrass , its almost sure to be that.
Apart from that as others have said , check mechanicals and try tweak the "tuning" setting in the driver. Mechanical poroblems mostly exhibit as wavy lines of skewed lines rather than distinct double images.
There is also an issue with the explorer and the x/y motors and the shaft encoder , the housings allow dust to get in and the encoder become dirty , which can lead to this issue - you can remove the motors and carefully pry the top housing off and clean the circular shaft encoder and the reader with a soft brush and gentle canned air, when replacing the covers use masking tape to seal all seams etc. (if it's this , is almost 100% certain affecting your X motor)
If those dont work , as Peck said , you might be splitting the beam somewhere in the beam path.