Hi @lasertechs,
I was using the laser on Friday, engraving and cutting some 3mm cork and noticed my engraving was significantly faded on one side material, and the cut failed to make a clean cut with the settings I’ve used previously.
After checking the bed and eventually getting a level out, it seems the current bed is now so heavily damaged (at least 3 cuts through a dozen hexes on the grid are now there), that the whole right side is slanted down, and in the worst spots there are dips of up to 2mm.
Obviously, this isn’t ideal and will result in uneven engraving and cutting, especially on large flexible materials.
I’d heard on the grapevine that a new bed was floating around. Could we prioritise switching that over? If it needs someone to take it on, I’d be happy to.
Also reminder to @laserusers to be very careful with the bed, avoid cutting off the edge of your material and not use too high power settings for what you are working with, as well as cleaning out your residual material and not dropping things onto the bed.
I’ll have a look tomorrrow.
If the issue is that the engraving/cutting is weaker an the front left corner of the laser - that isn’t a bed issue, but a distance-from-laser-source/mirror issue
No, this was the middle right where the worst dip is, but there are multiple significant flaws in it now.
Thanks!
Yeah unicorn you’re correct the bed is old and knackered and warped in places which causes the beam to go out of focus and effect your cut and engrave quality.
Ive done some tests with the new bed in and it resolves the issue, we just didn’t want to deploy it just yet to get some more life out the old bed, but if you’ve noticed it that much I think its time to switch them out. Dont worry I will do it when i’m next in early next week!
Can confirm I’ve been experiencing a similar issue with ply cutting through in certain areas and looking like it’s cutting out of focus and not reaching the other side in others. Thought I was going mad but this now all makes sense!
On the speedy 300 with the correct settings 2mm shouldn’t make much difference on engraving but remember, if you are just engraving you could put your material on something very flat and then put it into the laser. This issue is generally caused by people dropping things onto the honeycomb, swapping it out with a new bed doesn’t resolve the issue if people don’t take really good care of it. @Tijan when cutting laser ply sometimes there can be more glue in one section of the material that can mean the laser doesn’t fully penetrate the material, you can also run multiple passes with an offset if using very thick laser ply.
Thanks Jonathan, good to know about potential glue distribution difference, I think I often experience that with MDF. Sometimes it’s fine with 2 passes, sometimes it needs a couple more. The new bed has been fitted (thanks @charlesmein ) and it’s made a noticeable difference to my cuts. I used MDF, 4mm ply and card yesterday all with very clean cuts. Was sure to keep the power as low as I could and not to let the laser stray off the material sides. Hopefully this bed will last a fair while