24x29inch mdf, flat black spray paint. 60degree vbit 3-4 hours.
One really important lesson learned. Make your background black so you can place all the dots on the subject. This one has 8500 dots on it.
For anyone interested in using Halftoner to do this, Easel isn’t currently compatible with the GCode halftoner outputs. I’m working with @JasonDorie on a patch to address that. If you want instructions on editing the GCode now, shoot me a message. I’ll do a post soon on that, and have a new release on my forked copy.
Final
Source
Preview
Generator settings
Toolpath settings
The GCode halftoner 1.6 generates was not fully compatible with Easel at the time of writing.
You are correct that the GCode that Halftoner V1.6 creates needs to be modified to make it compatible with Easel.
- Remove all of the Line number N### commands from each line.
is the symbol which means a number 0-9 in the U.S.
-
Change all G00 to G0
-
Change all G01 to G1
-
Change the first line containing
G00 G20 G17 G90 G40 G49 G80
to
G0 G20 G17 G90
-
Remove second line T1 M06
-
Change the second to last line from M05 to M5
8 Likes
that is a good looking project
- I assume it is expecting the work zero to be top of material at bottom left?
Yes
- Do I need to paint the material black before I cut the pattern?
No. Preference. I don’t recommend painting after with a foam roller
- Is the newest version 1.7 stable are ready to go, or should I use 1.6?
Yes. 1.7 is what I used…
I need to release a fork of this with grbl compatible guide.
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I am not sure I understand your answer to number 2. Are you saying do not paint first?
I suggest painting first.
No, it’s not strictly necessary, it’s a matter of preference. it’s art, and therefore highly subjective.
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Thanks I have painted my first attempt it is carving now. It should be done in a few days.
It should be done in a few days.
How large?!
What is your safe z set at?!
My job took ~3hrs
I was exaggerating, it should be done in 3 or 4 hours.
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Well my first test piece finished about 2AM last night and it was not what I was hoping for.
Here is the picture I used
Here is the halftone image made using dots with a 60 deg Vbit. I think my problem was the small size (7 inches by 7 inches) I tried to make. I was using a Spacing of .06 and a max size of .06 with an angle of 90 degrees, wavelenght and Amplitude of 0.0. I painted the pine board black and then ran the gcode.
I am going to try again with a 21 by 21 inch size (on birch ply) with Spacing of .2 and Max Size of .2 with an angle of 45 degrees. I figure it can only get better 
I’ve been wanting to try this for quite some time now
did the novelty of your jtech laser finally wear off?
I think I know where I went wrong but a little input is never bad. This has been carving for 7 hours now, seems a bit excessive 
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Thanks, I’m going to try the lines tomorrow. I went out to check on this and after 10 hours carving the machine had stopped and it wasn’t finished. We had a good storm move thru so either a very quick serge or the computer lost connection.
Dots are rewarding, but must use low z-safe height of 0.05. Also increasing z-acceleration setting helps
I looked a bit but couldn’t really find direction/description of all the halftone settings. Is there a writeup somewhere?
probably no writeup.
there’s a description within the source code…
If you have a specific question about a setting, ask. The software author is on the forum, and others who are familiar with it can answer also.
With Halftoner, bigger is better. Here is the result of the 24X24 inch dot carving. I think it came out pretty good. I think I will be doing lots more of these once family members see what is possible.
Total machine time was about 5 hours, setting the safe Z to .06 really cut the time required .
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