Bottom line: which laser machines have the smarts to draw a circle as a single smooth line?
So I've been having trouble getting nice edges on my PETG cuts, which is always a bit of a tricky material. Replacing the linear bearings helped a lot, but I found some challenges in cutting circles and circular arcs.
What happens is, my laser shakes as it moves along these arcs. Basically, it cuts circles as a bunch of short lines, and stops at the end of each line, and restarts at the beginning of the next. This makes for vibration, and slow movement around circles.
So I went fishing and found that the driver always converts arcs to short lines.
I went further in, and managed to create a file that sends a circle to the laser.
Then, I found that the laser draws the circle as even coarser lines than the driver was sending it. GCC has pretty much promised no new firmware on these models.
So when I do find a new laser, I'm interested in one that knows how to do curves properly. Doing it right means faster movement and smoother cuts.