Laser has a mind of it's own? Your thoughts?

[Jay Steel]

Well here's my story. Several yearsago I purchased a Accuis Powersharp 16 - 30 watt laser. The project Ibought it for never got off the ground and the laser sat probablyover a six year period being used less than 8 hours total I wouldguess through the years.


Well recently I was engraving agranite memorial at the laser engrave fine. Shortly thereafter Iengraved perhaps four wine glasses which came out terrific. Then Iattempted to engrave another wine glass and for some reason the laserskipped and collided with the rotary fixture.


Well after that glass finished, messedup because of the skip and collision, all I get when I send over anyjob is that the laser carriage goes back and forth along the X axis.


Doesn’t matter what I send as a job,a line square, a circle, text, a vertical line or anything else, thecarriage just goes back and forth, back and forth, back and forthalong the X axis. Also the beam doesn’t fire and power, this backand forth motion doesn’t engrave or cut, it just blinks, but nocutting or engraving of the back and forth motion.


Where I bought the laser, you probablycan guess where, just tells me they no longer support the product,see you later.


So here’s what I did with no betterresults. I figured software, cable or computer issue. I loadedsoftware driver and new Corel installation on a known good differentcomputer onto a brand new factory sealed hard drive, with a new sixfoot parallel cable, and get the same result. Just back and forthalong the X axis, no cutting or engraving from the powered on laser.


So what do you think? Any suggestionsfor a fix?


Having used the machine so little, ifit is to much money to be thrown at it for a fix, I think I'll partit out. It has a Synrad FireStar tube, air assist compressor, blowervacuum, rotary fixture, a couple different focal length lenses, honeycomb table, you know.


So I'd appreciate any thoughts on afix or the value of the parts.


Thanks a lot..............JaySteel

[Lee DeRaud]

Can't help you on why the laser isn't firing, but the X-only motion sure sounds like the controller thinks the rotary fixture is still installed.

As far as tech support, isn't Pinnacle/Accuris just a rebranded GCC machine, or am I thinking of something else?

[Jerome Stanek]

could the head have been knocked out of position and the beam isn't hitting the lens

[Bill George]

Check for loose connections on all the controllers.

[Kev Williams]

You've lost your Y axis control, which likely went while engraving the glass, sending the head back with no instructions on where to stop, so it didn't and hit the fixture...

As Jerome mentioned, the collision could easily have put any combination of the head, lens and mirrors out of alignment. You need to tape the first mirror the laser hits to determine if it's actually firing.

Bill mentions checking all connections, good advice: I've had many 'mind of its own' moments over the years, two in the past month. One was my NH V3400 cylinder engraver grew its own brain on the Z-axis. The problem was the stepper motor connector plug, simply needed to come apart and be cleaned. And just before that, my GCC laser started acting up, it would start engraving, then stop, then would run vector passes fine but not raster, then no display-- I found electric schematics online for it (google your machine and see what you can find), and after all voltage tests came back perfect, I then pulled every plug I could find, on the mother board and every wired plug I could find, brushed what I could with a soft artists paint brush, and re-seated every plug and connector firmly. The machine's been running perfectly since.

After sitting for years, you may have some iffy connections due to dust & natural corrosion issues on some of your connections. Try unplugging and re-seating all the plugs. I even re-seat removable IC chips I find on circuit boards...

If that fails, you may be looking at a bad controller. Even with no support for the machine, there are other controllers that will work, I'm sure...

[AL Ursich]

My first thought was that it's position sensing device has failed in some way. The feedback to the computer as to where the axis or head is...

Don't even know which type of encoder is used....

So if it is a Strip Magnetic or Pulse Encoder a cleaning is in order of the sensor head. Could just be dust collected on the sensor.

If it is a Rotary Encoder then the same applies like the example from the CarveWright encoder, pulses on a disk.

Then Mechanical... Have seen posted a few times where a set screw came loose and a encoder was loose and not turning...

Then like posted above, all the signal connection cables involved in sensing the position, they need to be inspected, cleaned and reseated.

Good Luck,

AL

[Lee DeRaud]

My first thought was that it's position sensing device has failed in some way. The feedback to the computer as to where the axis or head is...

Don't even know which type of encoder is used....

Assuming there even is one...

My ULS (and I suspect other entry-level lasers are similar) uses stepper motors: the only "position feedback" consists of limit switches at one extreme of each axis. A homing cycle moves the motion system toward home position until each switch closes to zero out its axis, and all further motion is just a question of counting step pulses from that origin.

[AL Ursich]

Assuming there even is one...

My ULS (and I suspect other entry-level lasers are similar) uses stepper motors: the only "position feedback" consists of limit switches at one extreme of each axis. A homing cycle moves the motion system toward home position until each switch closes to zero out its axis, and all further motion is just a question of counting step pulses from that origin.

Like HE Said.... Steppers.... Didn't think of that.... Good Call.

Then like posted above the limit switch is a important part of the homing process... Look for a out of position or just stuck switch...

AL

[Lee DeRaud]

Then like posted above the limit switch is a important part of the homing process... Look for a out of position or just stuck switch...

If OP's system was trying to home on the Y-axis, I'd expect some movement, even to the point of over-running the edges of the cutting area. But it isn't moving at all in that direction.

I'd try plugging the rotary fixture back in, running a test job, and see if it turns. Also, it would help to know if the current Y position is lined up with the rotary's rotation axis.