RDWorks Learning Lab 11 part1 rotary table introduction
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- Опубликовано: 26 авг 2024
- If you own a Chinese laser cutter this little series of videos about me learning how to use the free software provided, may solve the problem of trying to learn from a virtually unreadable manual.
I am nothing to do with RD Works, I am not an instructor and I am no expert. This series will document the essential bits of many hours of trial and error
![[03] Ruida - Using RD Works for the 1st Time](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/i0X8bbjV8hM/mqdefault.jpg)
Many, many,many thanks for your Videos. I love to see them. I bought this laser 10 days ago and until now your videos helped me a lot. Thanks again and keep on producing!
Hi Russ,
I have been watching your videos and working my way through
them for some time now, and would have to say I believe you are a genius.
I am looking to use my laser machine to generate an income
while I recover from an upcoming major heart surgery.
The material you have provided thus far has saved me much time which I currently do
not have a lot of at the moment, as this would have taken me forever to attempt
to figure out on my own, and for this I thank you.
I was hoping that I could have some of your .dxf files,
particularly the design for the laser pointer used to align the mirrors and the
jig you are using for levelling items on the rotary table.
It would be greatly appreciated if you could assist me with
this.
I look forward to hearing back from you.
Thanks and regards,
Joe
Hi Russ, thanks for your reply, you are widely known as you probably know, many have referred me to you, no retirement isn't easy because you don't if you have her indoors !!!! That's what my logo means, I now work for my wife. But I'll look into the links and let you know if I need a new machine sooner than I wanted lol. Wish now I had bought a bigger model with all attachments, but the wife knows best !!!!! NOT !!!!! Cheers Russ, great to learn from you. Ray 👍🏻🇬🇧
FYI rotary attachment doesn't have any home switches, machine take so long to zero axis and it gives up basically. You have to manually move gantry that you disconnected and move it to its home switches. find video on YT " roller rotary setup" from boss laser. Interestingly Boss lasers are little modified Chinese lasers and they even use RDworks
+mateusz1945
I can only say, watch this video fully to witness that my machine DOES find it's zero automatically. Whilst experimenting, I initially tried to force a manual zero on the Y axis and never succeeded. I realise that Boss Lasers are basically red re-badged versions of my blue machine. They have done a good job of re writing the manual for RDWorks so that it's now understandable english. Maybe some of their firmware is different also.
+SarbarMultimedia connect your Y axis and take timing belt off, you will see that stepper will still spin slowly and try to find home it will never find it, After a while it will give up and let you use machine without home.
Just because machine starts and its ready to go , doesn't mean it found "home" i know because i did that and i have same DSP
besides there is absolutely no need for home or limit on rotary table. Limit switch requires 2 extra wires. If your stepper motor only have 4 wires there is no switch.
It is weird that you cannot manually home it because DSP is not aware that you connected rotary and it still is looking for homing from your y axis. Key is to move your gantry to switch then wait until stepper reverse rotation and then move away from switch.
+mateusz1945
Thanks for all your information . I have not used the rotary since doing this exploratory work a few months ago but I will check out your suggestions. When trying to find out find information about why I couldn't get my rotary to work (there were no instructions) I did read that there was not an actual zero for the rotary and that it just ran out of patience after 30 seconds or so and let you proceed. I eventually found my problem was that I had ticked "enable rotary sculpture" in the tooling program. It appears that this is for use with a chuck type rotary nand not the roller type.
Thanks again I'll hook up and try all in the next few days.
+mateusz1945
I was doing a quick mode burn test a few days ago and had to disconnect the Y axis. I recalled your comments and tried to manually move the beam into its home position. I couldn't get it to zero immediately and even after 20 or 30 seconds it didn't register. However, as soon as I moved the beam away from zero it registered. That's great news so thanks for that information.
Hi Russ, I'm Ray from Nottinghamshire, Ive just retired from my own manufacturing company and decided to take up the laser as a hobby, I find your tutorials brilliant and really useful. I've stated my quest with a K40, it's going fine, but I've just bought a rotary to attachment for the K40, I'm upgrading next year, the one you show here how would I connect the stepper motor and disconnect the y axis motor, any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks Russ, keep up the tutorials, brilliant. Ray M
Hi Ray
I too have an amateur project engineer indoors who conspires to spend my time for me as well as my money!! Who said retirement was easy?
Sorry I know nothing about the K40. . The frame rotary you have purchased may well be driven by a Nema 23 size motor whereas I suspect your K40 will be driven by weaker Nema 17 motors. I do not know enough about the motors to advise on wiring but I would check your motor sizes and see if the stepper drives in the k40 can deal with the higher load.from a bigger motor.
There is a non-motorized solution which I design and demonstrate in
ruclips.net/video/-uafUAX04G4/видео.html
ruclips.net/video/mCQqn0kfvCo/видео.html
Best wishes
Russ
Thank you so much for all the time you put into these videos. You are amazing!
your videos are something between Games of Thrones and Vikings, if we start watch we can't stop anymore :D
Hi Eduardo
You are too kind.You need a special kind of interest, otherwise I'm it's like watching paint dry or grass growing.
My wife is convinced I have a secret mistress in my workshop!!
Best wishes
Russ
hahaha
Great video! Like you I couldn't find any info for the 4th axis and the wife has been telling me I have to quit living in the shop. I think if you're going to figure out how to use one of these Chinese lasers it's gonna take some serious shop time!
This is not fourth axis, this is only Y axis he is using, he is doing good, he is genius.
I have a 3018 CNC engraver and had the same thoughts to create a rotary Y Axis.
But i am not quite sure if the workpiece diameter does effect the travel distance and
speed. Adjusting that would be possible but annoying, that would have to be done due
the travel setting of the pulses per millimeter. Because the F speed is the same for all
the axis. On top of that it would have to be calculated with every workpiece diameter
change and this would be awkward. It is just a thought for now.
Hi Jimmi
There are two types of stepper driven rotary engraver. Circumferential drive and axial drive. The circumferential drive is available as the roller type (as in the video) and as a wheel type.
The axial type is usually in the form of a 3 jaw chuck. If you have a CNC machine there is a mechanical load on the work piece when you engrave it, therefore you cannot use the circumferential drive type because it relies on gravity and friction to accurately transmit rotation to the work piece. There are no machining forces with a laser so this works just fine. You are therefore stuck with using a 3 jaw chuck axial type.. I don't know what software you will be using to control your CNC machine but you can be sure that somewhere you will have rotary option that will require you to specify the number of stepper pulses per rev (360 degrees) You will have to look at your stepper switch settings to find out what yours is set to and this will be a once off input to your software. After that you will only have to specify the diameter you are engraving and the software should deal with the distance per step issue.
Best wishes
Russ
@@SarbarMultimedia Thank You very much for your reply. Watching you next video in the series wiped all my following questions out. You have a great solution
for compensating the scaling diviation thru the G- code! At least i would like to mention i was very impressed a i saw how you delt with the aquarium pump nozel,
other laser build videos did show the assembly of the nozel with the bubble hose attached to it, and i think how you analized the device and put it to proper work
was amaizing! :)
@@jimmihenry
Never lose sight of the fact this is a record of my learning journey. I struggle at times, go round in circles and make mistakes. I do not edit them out to make myself look competent, I am a believer that mistakes are all part of the learning process when you have no instructions to follow. It's better that I make those mistakes because it will help shortcut your learning curve..Trying to help so many people with their problems has also be of tremendous help in widening my experience of issues not seen with my own machines. When I first started to uncover the poorly designed and badly assembled machine that I had bought, I was REALLY disappointed. It was only when I considered the opportunity for me to gather video material for my video editing hobby, did I decide to use my engineering experience to get double pleasure from the situation. Without that junk machine I would not be in my current situation or having half as much fun!!!
Best wishes
Russ
You have been happy with the RDworks that came with your machine? My machine should be here by the end of the month. Bought it sept 1 and will receive Dec (give or take). Just information for any planning on buying a Chinese laser.
Hi
The version of RDWorks shipped with the machine may be old and may contain a virus. I would advise downloading and installing the latest version from the Cloudray website (issue 54) cloudray2021.oss-us-west-1.aliyuncs.com/Product%20information/Software%26Board/%E7%9D%BF%E8%BE%BE6445/RDWorksV8Setup8.01.54-20210513.rar
Best wishes
Russ
@@SarbarMultimedia unfortunately the link does not work
@@magicman9486
Hi,I downloaded from here a few days ago. Just click the link rather than copy and paste.. It is the first item
www.cloudraylaser.com/pages/download-link
Best wishes
Russ
@@SarbarMultimedia thanks. that worked
Hi! I have the same unit and for the life of me cannot figure out why it is engraving tumblers on an angle. Rotary is squared to table. Driving me nuts
Hi Jeff this was early in my learing journey whenI ws getting to grips with this roller device that was supplied free with my machine. If you have simple cylinders it works just fine but start to engrave tapers articles jine tumblerrs and you start encountering some problems with physics and geometry. . These parallel rollers are transmitting their linear motion the circumference of your tumbler into .rotary motion. Lets tahke a silly extreme example where you have a tumbler that is 4" diameter to drink from and 2" diameter at it's base. The rollers are trying to turn the 4" diameter at one rotary speed and the 2" diameter at TWICE that rotary speed Which diameter will win?. It will be random and unpredictable . Something will have to overcome friction and slip. A simple solution to guarantee that the 4" drives and the 2" "slips" id to put a rubber band around the 4" diameter After playing with this device a few times, the novelty wore off as I became aware of it's basic design weakness. This was when I realized the merits of the wheel type rotaty devices . It drives on one end af rotates freely on the other end. see
reliablelaser.en.alibaba.com/product/60605711878-804129398/4_wheel_roller_type_rim_drive_laser_rotary_fixture_attachment_rotation_axis_for_cylinrical_object_in_CO2_laser_engraver.html
A lot later on I make my own simple self powered rotary
see
ruclips.net/video/mCQqn0kfvCo/видео.html
Hope this answers your question
Best wishes
Russ
@@SarbarMultimedia thanks so much for the quick response... looks like I'm getting a different one :)
The rotary I've bought. Is exactly same as the one your displaying on this video. There will be a way of using it on the K40 I'm sure,
thank you and looking forward for your new videos
Could you tell me where to get the rotary table? The Laguna PL 12/20 looks similar in a few ways and I am curious if this will work on it.
Hi Michael
I have played with a few different rotaries. This little roller system was free with the machine. It works up to a point but it has serious limitations The positives are that it is cheap and compact but the big negative is the basic design principle. If you wish to engrave a tapered beaker or glass tumbler you automatically encounter two problems. First is that you eed to present the tapered shape so that the scanned surface is parallel to the head movement. Then only way to do this is to chock up one end of the frame.Secondly the rollers are parallel and are trying to drive a tapered object through 360 degrees with a CIRCUMFERENTIAL contact. Something has to slip because the circumference of the tumbler is different at each end. I have found that an elastic band around the big diameter tends to drive one end whist allowing the other to slip. Its a pretty poor workaround that mainly works ok. My advice is to steer away from this style of rotary. The wheel type are the most practical. The chuck type are also very limited for tapered objects.
Best wishes
Russ
Have you tried LIGHT BURN? Way easier than this old program plus what really opened up my laser for me is Light Burn is configured for a camera with a fish eye lens’s Sonething only the super expensive lasers have. I believe I paid 50 bucks for my license and I tried out several cameras . They sell one for 80 bucks but I purchased a high end Logitech camera for34 dollars on eBay. Incredible. This camera option I can hand draw something on paper and put it on the table after using the camera without touching the paper it perfectly cut ou5 what I drew! Not being critical I’ve been following you a couple years. I think you are way smarter than I am and if lightburn didn’t come along I was afraid I’d have to sell my laser. I’m a luthier and just didn’t have the time or patience to lean just wondering on your opinion on light burn
Hi Mark
Lightburn is a fantastic piece of work and I love everything about it. I particularly started using it soon after it was available because it had lots of graphic options that aided me in my search for the smallest dot and have been in close contact with the guy that developed it. There were a few detailed issues that most would not notice that have now been fixed. Several people have asked your question and if I would be doing a series with it. My answer is a simple no because there is a great series of tutorial videos that have been issued by the developer. My series stopped looking at the RDWorks software long long ago and now focuses more on the detailed intricacies of the laser technology.
Thanks for the comment because it allows others to read about Lightburn.
Best wishes
Russ
Good day, is there a place I can find the roller attachment plans you made for the rotary bed? Thank you Sir.
Hi
If you wish to send my a You Tube message with your email address I will get a copy of the file to you
Best wishes
Russ
Good evening Russ and thank you once again for publishing all of your videos! I am seeking your help as I am beyond frustrated. I am etching wine glasses using the same laser and rotary you show in this video. I have the computer connected via USB and am not using the User Settings Rotary or Diameter settings. I did go in and adjust the Vendor settings for the Grid and Diameter. Nonetheless, I get the first glass to etch perfect. I place the next glass in and press Start again and the next glass etches at a width much more compressed then the first . I have experimented all night and am tired of wasting glasses. I hope you can help. Much appreciated in advance.
Hi Brian
Depending in the shape and sort of glass this type of roller system is fraught with mechanical issues.. This roller system relies on driving via the object's circumference. Take for example a tapered tumbler, the circumference at one end is different to the other. Something has to slip as the object make one complete revolution and that could be totally random. You can easily address this issue with a rubber band around one end of your glass. Adjusting your vendor settings will not help, the rubber band will.
Best wishes
Russ
Hi Russ, I am going to give the rotary engraving a go tonight. Just sat down to watch your videos. I do have one question though. Where did you get the gauge for your air assist? I need to get one because I basically use two settings. Full on to cut and just enough to keep the smoke from going back up to the focusing lens. Thanks, and I really enjoy watching your videos.
I've got exactly the same rotary device! It works great, I put it on the bed and connect the cable and of it goes (connect cables powered down). The problem is when I take out the rotary and reconnect the cable for the laser table. Doesn't seem to matter what I do, the machine keeps peeping! So far the only thing that seems to work is to unplug the electrical cord and let it sit overnight! Any ideas, help will ben appreciated.
Captn Herm
Hi
There is no logical reason for this strange behaviour unless you are doing something wrong. First, you must switch off your machine before disconnecting/connecting cables. When the machine powers up it will automatically go through a reset 0,0 routine. After you replug the YAXIS cable back in, does the machine go through this procedure? In the USERTAB, have you selected ROTARY? is so then this is wrong. That is only required if you have a chuck type rotary device. When you connect your roller rotary the machine thinks it is still driving the Y axis and tries to go though a normal seer routine. Read other comments below about zeroing your rotary
Best regards
Russ
OK, I fixed it, I noticed that if I touched the cable it quit peeping, so I figured I'd hook up the extra ground cable (the whole machine should be ground through the electrical system!), started it up again and everything worked fine. I did do a system reset, just in case I pushed something wrong!
Hopefully together we will be able to figure these lasers out! Next is the speed of the rotary turner so that it does a good burn. I did an oval yesterday that looks like a circle on my paper roll.
Thanks for your help Russ.
hi and thanks for all your helpful videos, can you tell me where to purchase rotary ?
Search ebay for "Cylinder Rotary Attachment " and you will find them
www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Cylinder-Rotary-Attachment-Fit-50w-60w-80w-100w-130w-CO2-laser-engraver-machine-/291869264971?hash=item43f4c38c4b:g:iggAAOSw3ihXS917
Best regards
Russ
I would like to know were I can find the rotary bed? Thanks Richard
Hi Richard
It was a free extra with my machine. Yes it does the job ( sort of ) but has weaknesses. This is a circumferential drive rotary. Another variant of this type of drive is the motorized wheel system. The wheel type is a much more flexible system and you will find many variations on that theme are available. See here
www.google.co.uk/search?q=rotary+engraving+wheels&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwizvrr94evWAhXCuRoKHZdaCqUQsAQIUg&biw=1269&bih=594
However, Dont rush to spend your money tomorrow as, just as I am writing to you, I am putting the finishing touches to a video on how to build your own non motorized rotary unit that is so amazingly simple. I have specifically designed it for my Lightblade machine as part of my training video commitment to Thinklaser BUT it is sufficiently radical that I feel the whole community should benefit from it and will be adapting the edit for a Learning Lab session in the next week or so.
All best wishes
Russ
thank you very much for your replay
What do you have hooked up to your air assist?
Hi Conner
Very observant. This was very early in my learning journey when I thought the air assist pressure was very important The T connects to a pressure gauge. I was using a shop compressor from time to time with a regulator because my previous background with metal cutting lasers made me think I needed high pressure . I was wrong and soon after swapped back to the stupid little pulsing pump they supplied with the machine. I am still using those pumps 4 years later because they are not so stupid after all.
Best wishes
Russ
@@SarbarMultimedia Thanks Russ! I've started binge watching your videos while at work and thought i'd start at the beginning.
can u please tell me the parameters for a yeti rumbler. I have the same china laser. Thank u
+rudyq2011
Hi Rudy. Sorry I can't be of too much help to you . A Yeti tumbler is not something I've encountered here in the UK but I did check on line to get an idea what you are talking about. Firstly it is stainless steel, which you definitely cannot etch or engrave with such low power lasers like ours. The best you can do is to buy some very expensive chemical spray that basically you bake onto the surface with the laser beam., I'm sure you can find that on line. The other problem is dealing with tapered vessels. If you go to session 18 (I think) you will find a gizmo that I have designed to help with this problem. There may be alternative solutions for tapered vessels so it may be worth Googling it.
SarbarMultimedia
Thank you. But I went into vendor settings and wanted to change the y axis. But endeed up changing the x axis. Is there a way u can send me the original settings for x and y axis in vendor settings? Thank you
In the step length i had changed it. but now i am looking for the original setting
+rudyq2011 the answer is 0.35 microns. If you go to session 11 part2 there is a little section in there warning you about the dangers of messing with the vendor settings. The little table that comes up has the info there in case you lose it again. The settings are the same for both X and Y. Have you checked out part 2 yet because if you have the same rotary device as mine then the calibration method described there will save you going into vendor settings.
Awesome. Thank you. Yes i have the same laser and the same rotary attachment as you
bonjour quelqu un pourrais me dire s il a déjà utiliser le programme avec une clef usb pour faire fonctionner la machine et quelle extantion de fichier utiliser merc pour une réponse
Salut Michel
Oui, j'utilise une clé USB tout le temps. Lorsque vous SAUVEZ ou SAVEZ AS dans RDWorks, vous enregistrez un fichier de dessin qui peut être OUVERT à nouveau dans RDWorks. C'est un fichier .rld. Si vous souhaitez envoyer des données à la machine, vous devez créer un fichier de code machine. Vous le faites en appuyant sur le bouton SAVE TO UFILE en bas à droite. Utilisez un nom de fichier court (8 caractères maximum) et enregistrez-le dans votre clé USB. Vous ne pouvez pas rouvrir ce fichier, seul le contrôleur Ruida peut l'éclairer. Il s'agit d'un fichier .rd.
Vous pouvez voir cela démontré et le chargement à la machine dans
Https://ruclips.net/video/p8npuHUO5sw/видео.html
Meilleures salutations
Russ
SarbarMultimedia merci pour votre reponde je sauve comme cela mais ca ne fonctionne pas pourriez vous m envoyer un fichier tout simple que vous avez fait afin que je puisse contrôler si cela marche sur ma machine
merci d avance et bonne journée
bonjour Ruus
merci pour ta réponse mais c est comme sa que j enregistre le fichier mais rien ne va le nom est affiche sur le display c est tout pourrais tu m envoyer un petit fichier ra afin que je vois si cela fonctionne
merci d avance te bonne journee
ps je deviens dingue de ne pas trouver j ai passe toute la nuit sur ce problème
sorry je voulais dir fichiers RD merci
Salut Michel
Allez dans le système de messagerie privé du tube et envoyez-moi votre adresse e-mail afin que je puisse attacher des fichiers.
Meilleures salutations
Russ