Rotary axis and cylinder

Marking cylindrical parts — rings, tumblers, shafts — with a rotary axis connected to the controller. The laser marks a narrow band at the apex (the top point of the part under the beam), and the axis rotates the part between units or slices.

Enabling: Hardware Settings → Axis → Enable (the Rotary icon appears on the right panel) → the Rotary Mark flyout. While the flyout is open, the mark and red light commands run in rotary mode. Job settings are stored in the document and travel with the .znm file.

Text / Object mode

Marks unit by unit — a text glyph or an individual object: the axis brings the unit to the apex, the unit is burned flat, and the axis moves to the next one. Split settings do not apply here; the mark is anchored to the axis position at the moment MARK is pressed — the panel hint says so honestly.

Vector Mark mode (split)

Vector geometry is sliced into vertical strips; each strip is marked at the apex with an axis rotation between strips.

  • Part diameter and height, split size (strip width), and overlap between strips — to fight seams.
  • Force split (one grid) — one global grid for all objects; without it, small objects are marked whole at the apex.
  • Split lines — cut along manual lines on the canvas (double-click to add, drag to move) instead of the uniform grid; Auto Split Lines places them along object edges.
  • Order: tree order (as in EzCad) or left to right; text glyphs always follow the text order.
  • The panel warns about defocus on curvature: the wider the strip on a small diameter, the more defocus at its edge — with a concrete number and the advice to reduce the split size.

The axis: jog and control

  • In the Rotary panel: current position, jog (Ctrl+← / Ctrl+→), home and set-zero buttons.
  • The Axis Control dialog (Laser → Axis Control): pulses per revolution, speed, the current position in pulses and degrees, CW/CCW jog, move-to-angle, STOP. Motion errors are explained to the operator — from a wrong Pulses/Rev to a drive fault.
  • Axis compensations (Scale/Backlash/Shift) are stored but not applied yet — the tab honestly says “stored but not applied”.

Step-by-step red light tracing

With the Rotary panel open, the red light (F1) starts interactive tracing: the axis brings the first unit to the apex, the red beam traces it, and the unit is highlighted on the canvas. The ← / → keys step through units (through slices in Vector Mark mode); Esc turns the beam off and returns the axis home.

Machine verification status

  • Text/Object mode and step-by-step red tracing are machine-confirmed (cycle timing matches EzCad).
  • The Vector Mark split mode is fully implemented and works on the emulator; final hardware validation is still in progress — three checks remain open: a verification burn with splitting (including strip seams), a byte-level cross-check of the axis jog against EzCad, and the Force split semantics.

Cylinder correction (without an axis)

For a stationary cylindrical part — pipes, bottles, mugs — the geometry is pre-distorted with a cylinder projection formula so the artwork does not stretch on the curvature. Suitable for shallow artwork within the focus zone.

  • The Cylinder flyout: surface Convex (cylinder) or Concave (inside), the radius, and the axis the part lies along; with the flyout open the distortion preview is drawn on the canvas.
  • Protection against accidental correction: closing the flyout automatically disables the correction — the next flat-part mark will not run with a cylindrical pre-distortion.
  • The settings also import from EzCad markcfg7.
  • The implementation is complete; verification of the correction quality on a real part is still in progress.

Limitations

  • Continuous mode does not combine with rotary — the command is rejected with a request to switch it off.
  • Raster engraving is not supported on the rotary axis; vectors work.
  • An object taller than the marking band is rejected with an exact message.