Rotary Setup (Galvo)¶

The Rotary Setup can be found on the toolbar with the rotary icon, in the "Laser Tools" menu near the bottom, or brought up by using Ctrl+Shift+R or Cmd+Shift+R.

To use the rotary with your marking laser, you first need to set up the rotary parameters.

1. First choose whether you have a chuck or roller style rotary.
2. Set the Steps per Rotation value to the number of motor steps required to spin the rotary itself one complete rotation when the Test button is pressed. (it should rotate a full 360 degrees, pause, then rotate back to the starting point).
3. Set the Min and Max speeds to move the rotary, in pulses per second.
4. Enter the Acceleration time set the ramping speed from Min to Max.
5. Set the Return speed value to adjust how fast to move when returning to the starting point.
6. Choose whether you are rotating around the X or Y axis. If the roller is along the horizontal axis, choose X, if it's along the vertical axis, choose Y.
7. You may need to enable the Reverse Rotary Direction switch if the output is backwards or sliced in the wrong order.

Setup¶

Galvo markers will run a portion of the job (a slice), rotate the object, run another slice, and so on.

Split Size¶

The size of each slice is called the 'Split Size'. If your object is tapered, irregularly shaped, or not perfectly aligned with the rotary axis, using a small split size can help reduce gaps or misalignment of the splits.

A larger split size will reduce the time spent running the job, but can be harder to dial in the settings such that no overlaps or gaps are visible.

Overlap¶

To help eliminate visible gaps between slices, you can tell LightBurn to overlap them — specifying an overlap of zero means that each slice is run on its own. A non-zero overlap value will produce that much overlap on the ends of each slice, like this:

If you are removing paint, anodizing, or other surface coating, using a small overlap is recommended. If you are annealing or marking the material directly, adding overlaps could produce visible artifacts.

Object Diameter¶

Measure the diameter carefully for best results. If your object is tapered, check out our Taper Warp Tool, added in LightBurn 1.5.

Run Whole Shapes¶

When Run whole shapes, if possible is turned on, LightBurn will attempt to create splits that keep shapes intact. This can produce a higher quality finish without gaps or misalignment within shapes.

Running the job¶

When rotary mode is enabled, pressing the Start button on the main window will bring up the Rotary Marking window, shown here:

From here you can tune the split size, overlap, and object diameter, as well as jog the rotary, and run the job. When running a rotary job, the center of your page is treated as the current rotary position when you clicked Start. The Sanity Check button will check for some easily overlooked mistakes, and is a good supplement to previewing and framing your design as a final check before running the laser.

Starting in LightBurn 1.5, you can also frame your job from this window.

Rotations¶

Starting with LightBurn 1.5, you can reset the rotations on the rotary axis to 0. This will not change the position of your rotary, but can help you keep track of positioning.

Output Center¶

This setting allows you to shift the center position of your rotary output to compensate for the center of the rotary not lining up precisely with the center of the field. This value cannot be negative.

Focusing¶

See Focusing for more information.