Laser Cutter Rotary Axis

Setup

• Place Rotary attachment in desired position on bed
  • Set it on top of a piece of scrap material to avoid damaging the honeycomb
• With the Laser Cutter OFF, plug rotary in to plug at right-hand side of machine
  • Plugging/unplugging the rotary with the machine on can destroy the motor driver. DON’T DO IT!
• Turn machine on, home, and lower the bed until the laser head clears the rotary
• Check alignment of red dot laser
• Move the gantry down to the desired position over the rotary attachment
• Use the Precision Alignment Tool™ to line up the rotary attachment with gantry
• Lower Bed to sufficient clearance for the workpiece
• Position the head at the desired start point (don’t use the Y buttons!)
• Zero the machine
• Run the job

Engrave Settings

• Glass
  • Cut Rate 100
  • Min Power 15
  • Max Power 15
  • Overscan 5
  • Burn White OFF
  • Dot Size 0.1

Tips & Tricks

• The magic number is 114.6
• If you are engraving an Item that has multiple diameters (like a wine bottle) and the diameter that is being driven by the wheels is not the same as the diameter being engraved on, you’ll need to do some math.
  • A Diameter = 114.6 x (Engrave Diameter / Drive Diameter)
• If you are engraving on a tapered surface, your engraving will also be tapered, unless you skew the image before importing it.
  • This will need to be done in an external program
  • Here are some instructions on how to do it for vectors in Inkscape
• If you want the design to wrap all the way around the Y height will need to be equal to the circumference of the workpiece (can be tricky to join perfectly)
  • C = pi x Engrave Diameter
• If the workpiece is too light and/or smooth it may slip on the rollers.
  • Weights can be used to eliminate this. Chunks of putty/clay work well for glasses.

Links

Example files for class