What is the Rotary Status for the laser?

We have received the new rotary we ordered as a spare and will make sure everything is working today at our laser maintenance day. We are still working on getting the old one fixed also.

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@sixvolts Sweet. Thanks for letting us know.

@talkers
The we tested the new rotary during maintenance today and found an issue. I’ve checked all the dip switches and they match the old unit AND our wiki. Unfortunately, the Y axis on the new rotary turns in the same direction no matter which way Y is moved. So if you press up, it turns the same direction as when you press down. We tested on Big Thunder and Blitzen and both had the same issue.

We’ve left the new rotary under the desk and marked it for you. Can you take a look and see if we are missing anything?

whatttt???

@darrent Feel free to look at this as well.

Has there been any progress on the new rotary?

This might contain pertinent info:

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Any update on the rotary attachment?

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I’m working on the issue. I found a problem with the cabling, but that’s resolved for now.

The issue now is that the y axis isn’t accepting the diameter setting in rdworks. I’ve tried to get back to the old version, but it doesn’t like the new Big Thunder machine. The USB won’t recognize the laser with the old version.

I’m working with Thunder Tech support and we’ll see if they can sort out the issue.

@tomthm is going to be working on getting Lightburn installed and licensed correctly on all the Thunder PCs. I’ve tested Lightburn and it seems to be working fine with the rotary.

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Oooooh. Yes please!

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It will be great to have it back up and running. Thanks to everyone working on it!!

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Is Lightburn available on one of the Thunder PC’s now? We are kind of desperate to use the rotary and willing to learn how to use Lightburn to move our project forward. We are grateful at the multiple attempts to get the rotary back up and running by all those involved. Thank You! Fairly new here, just looking for a way forward after joining a couple months ago to use the rotary.

Love the Space and there’s been plenty to do here in the meantime. Any help is appreciated.

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So just a note for anyone else waiting on the rotary: it seems to work as long as you scale your Y axis in rdworks by about +25%, otherwise it’ll be squished.

This will depend on the diameter of your object.

This was a problem with the old version as well when Andrew and Ali tried it on Blitzen.

Mine was 77 mm for reference. 10% at 500 mm/s marks Painters tape for if someone wants to make a trial run and compare actual to computed and find their percentage. It’ll be a rough estimate unless one takes the arch into account but shouldn’t make too big of a difference I shouldn’t think.

Just an update here.
We successfully began using the Rotary over the past few weeks. We were manipulating the settings in RDworks as mentioned above and getting our desired outcome. The rotary was turning in both directions and working well. Recently we began noticing a short in the connector (or wires) where it plugs into the laser. It would work/not work based on position of the wire like a phone charger cable giving out.

Of course it stopped working soon after we noticed the short. Because we haven’t been able to make it to the laser meetings to get on the laser committee we haven’t attempted fixing it. We have found a replacement connector through Altex locally.

Just an FYI in case anyone plans to use it or attempt a fix.

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Has this been fixed yet? RD Works or Lightburn?

It needs a new stepper.


I’d be happy to order one and install it but it seems no one from Laser was interested in that thread or the work I did to properly diagnose the issue.

Hoping we can get the new stepper and have the Rotary attachment in working condition… It feels like months since I’ve been waiting to try it out :stuck_out_tongue:

After the last Laser Committee meeting @michaelb confirmed what @mstovenour is saying. Steppers need to be replaced. The last word was that Laser was ordering them. That was a couple weeks ago so unless something has changed these should be on the way.

@sixvolts Can you confirm for all of us that the steppers have been ordered?

There is nothing else any one member can do at this point and is up to Laser to have ordered the parts. My friend and I joined DMS for the lasers and specifically the rotary. That was in February. It’s been partially working or completely inoperable since before we joined. Having these working is overdue. It’s unfortunate the work Michael Stovenour did was overlooked because these would most likely be in operation right now.

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Still waiting on a parts list to place the order. @michaelb can you send that over?

This has been a complicated issue. We expected that ordering a new rotary a few months back would have solved some problems, but it just made for more questions. I certainly understand your frustration.