Rabbit laser:need help

[pbucha]

Hi all, well i went ahead and ordered the HX-1290SE from Rabbit, along with spare tube, rotary attachment, water chiller and air purifier. After waiting what seemed like an eternity it all finally arrived in Spain (where I live) I then had a nightmare getting it out of Spanish customs, but thats another story.

So it all finally got to me, hurrah! I got the thing unpacked, and it all looked good, no broken parts or laser tubes, which was a relief. The first thing i did was to set up the mirrors, according to the instuctions I should of had some circular cardboard discs to assist this...I didn't. Still not to worry i just made a few of my own and soon had that sorted.

The air purifyer was a different story, turns out its 3 phase and 380V...what th'... I dont have 3 phase and there is no chance of 380V either. I do feel I should have been informed about this prior to purchase, because I certainly would not have bought it. The biggest problem with this is that my shop is on the high street, there is no way i can output wood, paper or plastic smoke to the street, this makes my entire buisness difficult.

So for the time being i am conducting my experiments on glass. Which brings me to my question. how do you output from these things??

I started simple using the supplied software Laser Cut 5, i drew a circle in the lower left quadrant near the 0,0 basically it was a 100mm circle set 150mm up and 150mm in. but when i go to the output part of the software, all that happens is the head moves 8'' on the y axis then scans a 2'' sweep across the x axis with no laser light. the odd thing here is that this is all it will do, no matter whether i draw a triangle, circle, square or random shape. Or even if i load a bitmap, same result.

When i hit the 'datum' button it returns to the upper right as it should, it came with a few files loaded into the onboard memory, one of these marked 123.mol worked fine it would write the word 'Green' within a few inches from where ever the laser head was. So i'm assuming that it should work.
if i hit the 'laser' button I get light output, just not when i draw somthing myself.

Now i'm, probably wrong here but what i had expected was that if i drew an image in the supplied software and positioned it on the grid that when i came to output, the laser head would move to that location and start to work, that does not happen.

so could anyone give me a quick rundown on how to draw a line circle, in case i'm missing somthing, If i can get that sorted i should be able to fugure out the rest. any other help/advice would be most welcome.

one last thing, since these machines dont use a 'print' type funtion, but their own propriety system, can i use this machine with 'photograv'

thanks to all

Paul

[lazerawy]

will I have some experience with other Chinese brands, but it seems all use the same software.

to draw a circle (vector output) you should use the cut mode not the engrave mode, when you press the output button, check what is written beside the color you are using for the circle, if it says engrave, double click on it and change to cut.


regarding the photograv , it output a black an white image so you can import it to your lasercut SW

I hope that helps

Good Luck

[pbucha]

thanks for your reply, hmmm thats what i did, i tried the simulate which shows the line being traced as it should.
I take it after drawing circle at say a 100mm circle at 100x 100y and the head is at the datum point. should it then seek to the origin point for my circle?

Because when i do that, mine just jumps forward about 200mm and then scans back and forth, but with no output from the laser. I tried loading a bit map from corel 12, output as 1bit bitmap/stucki and it just does the same thing.

It does'nt matter where the image is place on the software grid or the size/shape of the image or the proximity of the head to it. it just does the same thing. only when i load one of the pre loaded files does it do what i expect.

I trying to work out if this is due to my lack of expierience or if there is a problem with either the software or my setup or....any ideas anyone?

[lazerawy]

are you sure that you are running the file you created, maybe you are running one of the pre-saved files.
try to delete the pre -saved files first

[mexico.redsail]

Hello,
also be sure to check in the laser cut software if machine parameters are setup correctly, most of the time they are not pre configured, you have to setup table zize, movement direction and advance per step ratio.

[pbucha]

hi guys, @lazerawy thanks mate, that had been my thought so i had already deleted the pre loaded files. Just to give you all a bit more info. it works fine on the 'test' part of the software output, i can move the head on both the x and y axis and fire the laser. it's only on outputing a file i'm having the problems.

@mexico.redsail. now that is something i havn't done. i shall look into it, sadly where the machine is i have no internet so i have to come home to relpy to messages and do further research. i shall go and investigate.

thanks to everyone,

Paul

[pbucha]

aha, i think i'm getting somewhere, it seems once i have my drawing i have to go to the 'stand alone' section and press the 'Download CFG' buttin followed by the 'Download Current' button then when i go to the 'Begin' button it works. I dont know why i should have to upload it to the machine but that seems to work. Does this ring any bells for anyone.

Not sure why it says download when it seems to mean 'upload'

ah well starting to get somewhere.

thanks to all

Paul

[lazerawy]

mmm did you read the manual??

this is how it work, you have to press the 'Download Current' button to send the file to the machine memory, then you can press begin or start at the machine control panel.

you don't have to click 'Download CFG' every time. only if you changed the machine configuration (for example the pulse count the working area,..) and you don't want to upload your working files again.

Good luck

[pbucha]

I did , but being a dislexic old git i guess i didn't understand it.
I thought the section 'standalone' was for moving files to the machine to use from the pad, DOH!

oh well, all's well that ends well. I now have the machine working

MANY MANY, thanks to all those that helped.

beers are on me

[lamicron]

Pbucha, now you find out that you have to delete file and after download file, after that you can work from the machine pad. Bu t sometimes if you have problems with any function , this software looses some archives , then you have to reset it. I have installed 5 machines and in most of all I had to reset for at least 4 or 5 times. But the software is very easy to use.
Luis

[lazerawy]

Originally Posted by pbucha I did , but being a dislexic old git i guess i didn't understand it. I thought the section 'standalone' was for moving files to the machine to use from the pad, DOH! oh well, all's well that ends well. I now have the machine working MANY MANY, thanks to all those that helped. beers are on me

congratulation,
now I suggest that you draw a square let's say 250mmX250mm or larger and make sure the machine will draw the same size, if not you need to make some adjustment.
Good Luck