Beam head seems to want to push outside of its own boundries

Community Support
1

So when the laser gets to the edge of a design it sort of stutters and catches at the boundary like its trying to push farther than the rail will allow. This is also coinciding with camera alignment issues and it seems like they’re linked.

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Tried camera calibration, the aforementioned issue came up and each row got misaligned. Seems like it catching at the edge confuses the beam where the X component of its location is. Wanted to see if it could do straight lines as a second troubleshooting step and that it seems to manage, but again it tries to keep moving the beam farther than its allowed horizontally.

2

Could the head have gotten bumped since the last time it was powered on? You might want to try turning it off and then back on again, so it can re-home. Aside from that I can’t think of anything else, but someone else might have a suggestion!

3

That makes sense but it’s slamming into the edge on both sides. During the restart when it homes then goes to the left it slams into the side there too. It’s like it thinks the arm is longer than it is?

Also when I manually slide the head around with the machine off there’s a lot more resistance when I get it close or to the ends of the arm. I don’t recall if this is normal behavior or not.

4

Yeah, that takes it above my pay grade…@jules might have ideas, but if not we’ll probably have to wait for Support to weigh in. :frowning:

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5

Have you examined all the rails, belts, pulleys, ribbons and other dangly bits involved with both axes? Tight, unobstructed, and clean?

1 Like
6

No ideas, but Support can reset the calibration from their end. So definitely wait to hear from them. :slightly_smiling_face:

1 Like
7

I don’t think it is normal to feel resistance when moving the printhead on the carriage - at least I have never felt that resistance.

2 Likes
8

I’m sorry you ran into trouble when trying to run the recalibrator. I extracted the logs from your unit to take a closer look. As a next step, would you please clean the lens of your unit’s lid camera using a Zeiss wipe?

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Then, could you check the tension of your belts for me?

When pressing lightly on one side of each belt, the other side should not move.

Like this:

(You should see an animated image above)

Please check the belts and pulleys on the left and right side, as well as the belts and pulleys located under your laser arm. Let me know any of your belts are loose and I will follow up with your next steps. Thank you!

9

It’s been a little while since I’ve seen any replies on this thread so I’m going to close it. If you still need help with this please either start a new thread or email support@glowforge.com.