Lathe Style movement on Rotary

Hello, I am unsure if this is the correct area to post a feature request. I have been using laserweb for some time with a specially configured laser to cut and produce etching on cylinder shapes. These patterns are seamless and wrap around the entire cylinder.

The way we have it setup is that the laser head is in a fixed position while the work platform & rotary moves. This makes it quite slow as the entire thing has to accelerate and decelerate back and forth. Is there a way to have a raster mode where the A axis rotates continuously in 1 direction as and the x axis moves slowly along as the laser marks the cylinder. Think of the way a lathe cuts a tube. The spindle moves constantly while its being cut.

You might want to check out this program

Maybe I’m missing it, but it doesn’t seem applicable. Thanks.

GrblGru can generate and stream G-Code for a CNC lathe. Yes it is a new program to learn and is not laserweb but it is extremely versatile. The author is also very active with the program and is always happy to include programming that users want or support for the program.

There is an option in LawerWeb to do diagonal raster engraving, but unfortunately no vertical scanning, which would convert to 360° rotations forward and backward with one x step for every rotation.

What you could try is generate the normal raster gcode (with 90° rotated picture), then swap X and A in the gcode with a text editor. For example: Replace all “X” to “B”, then replace all “A” to “X”, then replace all “B” to “A”. This will rotate the picture by 90° so scanning is happening on A instead of X.

Yes, I have done just that as a workaround. Still it would be ideal if it did not have to go back and forth. Do you think this would be difficult feature to add for the next round?

I don’t think this would be complicated to add, but unfortunately there are no active frontend devs anymore, that would to it.

I am the last “active” core dev and I care about the machine control and server part. The react frontend is not my strength.

That is unfortunate. Do you think they would be interested in developing this feature if they could get paid for it. This is something that would be useful for us and would consider allocating some funds to make it happen.

Probably.
Can you please open an Issue on the Github page (https://github.com/LaserWeb/LaserWeb4/issues) and ask @Todd_Fleming (tbfleming on github) for help, as he was the main frontdend dev and I remember he also has made some lathe tests.