Messing around with halftone carving

Ok. So I think I got the depth thing down. But if I’m doing a lined halftone. How do I know the depth per pass. I don’t want to go to deep the first time and either mess up the machine or ruin the V-Bit. I’m using the halftone software by the way. I think it’s halftoner 1.7.

I don’t change any defaults, only giving job size, choosing lines or dotes and sending thru UGS.
Always comes up very clean result. Let’s take a look at this picture one more time;

image

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It only does one pass, and lines work the same as dots - Halftoner controls the depth. Unless you’re making very large holes (like, larger than 1/4" in diameter) you’re not likely to damage anything. Start with a conservative feed rate if that makes you more comfortable.

how to set spacing and max size? I have a bad cut if spacing and max size are the same or spacing is smaller than max size .


Spacing is how far apart the dots will be, and ‘Max Size’ is how big the largest dots will be. If you make them the same, it means the dots (or rows of lines) will touch. If that happens, fragile surface materials like paint mask or melamine will likely break off. For hard materials like anodized aluminum it’s ok to make them really close.

Max Size should not be bigger than spacing. I usually make Max Size about 10% to 20% smaller than spacing - for example, 3.3mm spacing, 3.0mm max size. If the result doesn’t leave enough surface material, you can leave the spacing, but reduce the Max size a little. ‘Dots’ mode is a little less sensitive to the spacing being too tight, because it leaves more material in general.

Here is a thought. I know its months later…
How bout you create internal color by using thin wood sheets and dying them?
You can get thin sheets and die each piece then glue them up. Once they are dry you can then carve based on depth. :slight_smile:

I want to try rubbing some dye on after the carve since I pre paint them black prior to carving I should be able to wipe off the excess.

does anyone know how to center my carve to the material in easel ? after i created g code it sent it to easel and looks like this …joker snip

I’m using halftoner 1.7 btw.

like v carve? i don’t have that yet ? is there a different way to set this?

I’m using halftoner 1.7

after i set a certain dimension in halftoner , it will change my width and sometimes length on its own. why does it do that?

It maintains the aspect ratio of the image. If you set the width, it will change the height, and vice versa, to keep the image from squashing.

There’s also an origin offset value you can enter if you want to shift the location of the output around. Most likely you’ve given it an image that contains a lot of blank space - There’s no way it would just choose to move it 5" to the right for no reason.

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You can edit / crop the photo in paint or photo editor to get it centered in the frame before writing the gcode, that should solve your problem.

Hi, Newbie here to the Xcarve, i have managed to create a halftone picture with dots, however when i try to do the same with lines, the pictures shows exactly what i want in Halftoner 1.7, and i write the gcode as i did before, but… when it comes to carving, it just produces the same thickness of lines and not what the saved [pic looks like?

any help will be appreciated.

thanks

Hope this helps?settingssettings 2

Will try that, thanks for your help

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still making lines all the same size and depth with the ‘include line numbers’ box unchecked :frowning:

as in the cuts its making, or the picture im trying to carve?

here you go, pic of the scrap test piece carve, and the pic im trying to get.carve