New release improved greater speed - but skips and is off center

Hey!
Love the new release and was excited to try it out. Running into a few problems…

  1. The first and row has a large skip partway through the print. I let it go and the second row went well. But then the 3rd row skipped again… Any reason why?
    The skip is about 2.7mm


  2. The accuracy is off. You can see where it was lined up on my computer.
    But it cut about 5mm to the left.


I understand that we are still in the beta stage with this. Hopefully this will help iron out some of the issues. Are these widespread issues or is my glowforge just wanting to be lazy and not go faster than 1000 speed?

Thanks!

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The only thing I can think of is that the head is hitting the side…

Actually - after looking at it closely, the engraving looks like it is close on to the accuracy of where I wanted it, but the cuts are off to the left. In my screen shot of the app, the engraving is centered in the circles, but the actual cut is off to the left.

I was running it at 3200 speed with 270 LPI and Full power.

Will these issues happen at pre-set GF settings?

Good idea, but as I was watching it, nothing like that happened. Nothing hit anything.
Thanks though…

If you have spare material (the back of this piece) you can try at a lower speed and see.

This is why it’s released as beta.

I’m going to ask the bleeding obvious - the material didn’t move did it?

I’ve fallen for that before on an engrave, not pinning it down well enough. (its always on the big engraves too!!!

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I have not seen it happen recently but just very rapid changes in direction can jump the settings and then until you turn the machine off and back on again the head will not be where the Glowforge thinks it is.

I’m sorry about the trouble with your print results when running at higher speeds. Regarding your alignment, since your unit engraved first and then cut, the cut being misaligned is likely related to the shift in your engrave.

Could you check the tension of the belt below your laser arm for me?

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

Like this:

(You should see an animated image above)

Let me know if the belt is loose and I will follow up with your next steps. Thank you!

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Thanks - but yes, it was pinned well.

Interesting… I don’t know why that would skip on the first and third row but not on the second one. Do you think it would?

Hello!

The belts move very slightly like in the animated image you sent. The right side moves incrementally more than the left side, but they don’t seem to move much more than the animated image you sent.

Thanks!

The issue here would be with the X-axis belt on the gantry itself, not the two on the sides. It’s the one that moves the head left-to-right. That wasn’t clear in Ivan’s response.

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Good point! I didn’t even think of that one.
Just checked it - it barely moves…

I’m relatively certain that kind of skip would have to be a mechanical issue but I don’t understand how or why - the head does not slam to a halt and reverse, there’s not really a lot of stress on it despite the higher speeds.

Right and the fact that it engraved the middle row just fine.
The 1st and 3rd row engrave is skipping and the cut is off to the left of the engrave about 5mm on all of the rows… Makes me think it’s a software issue.
But I don’t know.

I get it’s a beta release and I was excited about it. I was just wondering if anyone else was getting these types of issues with 3200 speed.

Thanks!

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Once the belt skips, it will stay there, mis-placed, unless it skips again, and the machine doesn’t know where the head is after the initial centering. In your case, it skipped twice.

Despite being tight, you might want to try the belt tensioning procedure, which is on the air assist fan cleaning page, iirc.

edit - no, it’s not, darnit. I know I’ve seen it somewhere but can’t think where. Might have been a support post in response to an issue, sorry.

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Thank you for the additional information about what you found after checking your belts. As a next step, please take a picture of the pulley beneath the right-hand side of your laser arm, similar to the following photo:

You can share it here on the forum, or email it to support@glowforge.com and we’ll take a look and follow up with next steps.

Here you go - thanks!

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Thank you for posting this so quickly!

If you look down each side of the belt underneath the laser arm, do you happen to notice any of the “teeth” on the belt missing or degraded?

Hello!
Nope - they all look and feel good, strong and intact.
Have there been any other cases of it skipping and cutting off as compared to the engrave with the higher speeds?

Thanks!