@dougl has provided good advice as usual. By the looks of it, your problem is not firmware. The belt tension etc. are very important and well worth spending a fair bit of time on. After your set up is good, you may need to keep tweaking the burn settings to get you closer to perfect results.
Something that has affected my engravings is “carriage wobble” (well that’s what I call it). If the black V wheels on the x and y carriages are not tight against the aluminum extrusion, then the carriages will wobble causing unpredictable inaccurate placement of the laser dot.
In my case I was engraving trapeziums when I expected rectangles, but I think that carriage wobble can cause the problems that you have described too.
If the carriages wobble when you twist them gently by hand, you will need to adjust the nuts fitted with acentric spacers so that the wheels run tight against the rails.
My engraver was not fitted with acentric spacers out of factory, so I had to buy them and fit them separately. They are not expensive items. And there are other way to ensure that the carriage does not wobble.
Hi and Merry Christmas,
a couple of pointers firstly look at your controller? What is it? What diode are you using? What lens ? Do you have your cabling partitioned correctly to avoid any EMI, Are your steppers using shielded cabling and have you adjusted the currents in your controller correctly. That can cause a lot of issues alone. Does your computer have enough processing power and Ram to support your software and the laser? Most controllers now need around 8 gb of Ram to work really well.
If youre thinking of upgrading a controller consider a visit to VMSTech.net and of their Facebook site and look at the LX2b or LX4s board, while these are primarily designed for CO2 lasers there is no real reason why they should not work on a diode. chat to the developer Eric Norton.
They are probably the best laser board on the market, I’ve tried a few and nothing compared to these,Ruida was left miles behind in tests I have performed on C02 lasers from 40 to 150 watts using Lightburn. The speed I can engrave at and cut are very fast, silent stepper drivers and full support for M7,M8 relay activation for air assist and extraction built in as standard , he also sells his only relays that are optically married to the controller rather than you using SSR’s at prices that you can afford. The guy is a retired Lockheed engineer and is basically a genius.
The boards are built by him in Florida. the service is the best I have eve rseen in this arena. They are designed for Hobby and Commercial lasers and he is currently designing a board with a 8 inch LCD panel that will be a rival to all Ruida controllers.
If you want to print Rasters then definitely look at buying a plugin for your favorite software like Gimp from the The Original Dude With A Lazer plugin on Facebook.
It will transform any raster work to another level. To the point of being almost of photographic quality.
Consider using the Lightburn forum. There are dozens of highly qualified users on there that can help you from within the program itself, but always supply the details of your laser, gcode where appropriate and Lightburn and computer version and type.
MKS firmware while is does work quite well as I found originally a few years ago it is no match now I believe for a board that has been handbuilt from the ground up and has its own. GRBL firmware written into it and maintained by the developer who also develops the hardware and knows both intimately.
Hopefully your issue is sorted but if not have a look at these items and do consider looking at your board. They do make a huge difference to performance.