Epilog laser cutter drift (bad or dirty encoders or encoder tape?)

[Maker Club]

Hi, we are a middle school maker club in Berkeley, California. We are having an issue with our Epilog laser cutter and are wondering if anyone has resolved the same issue or has any suggestions.

The laser cutter is an Epilog Helix 40 watt with 18x24" cutting area. Recently, on long engraving jobs (when the laser cutter goes left to right many times to engrave an area), the laser cutter drifts to the right. The drift is approximately 1 inch to the right for every 2.5 inches vertically, engraving at 600 DPI. Also, the drift is preserved all the way to cutting after engraving, where all the cuts are made in the wrong place.

(In this image, the parallelogram-ish area is supposed to be a rectangle. The circles on the piece I am holding should be cut out, but a different spot was cut out.)

We know this is not a software issue because the drift is irregular (the perpendicular edge of an engraving job is not a straight diagonal line, but a wiggly diagonal line). I think it could be an encoder issue. These laser cutters use encoders to verify that the laser head is moving exactly the right amount, even at high speeds where the motors are less precise.

Has anyone had an issue with encoders and had to clean or replace them? Any other ideas what this issue could be?

Thank you!

[Tracy R]

I had a situation like this and cleaned the encoder strip and it has worked like a charm!

Very easy to do.

https://www.epiloglaser.com/assets/downloads/tech-support/Cleaning-Encoder-strip.pdf

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Tracy Rudzitis
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[Maker Club]

Thanks for that tip -- we'll be thrilled if this solves it! 

Christine (and her Maker Club)

[Paul Meinersmann]

I agree that it is probably the encoder strip.  And I also want to share that there is a great Epilog group on Facebook (Epilog Laser Fans) of professional engravers that often share ideas and tips and I've found it a great place to lurk and learn more about how to make the best use of my laser (and fix problems).

Thank you,

Paul

Paul Meinersmann Technology & Makerspace Director St. George Municipal School Unit 65 Main St, PO BOX 153 Tenants Harbor, ME 04860 mobile: 207-975-3043 school: 207-372-6312 Pronouns: he/him/his

On Fri, Jan 7, 2022 at 7:30 PM Maker Club <bpcmak...@gmail.com> wrote:

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