Where is the laser engraving category?

Laser Cutting
45

Got some 1/8th and 1/4 balsa on the way to try it, will report back after the weekend @AngusMcleod

If you were going to do one offs that the spindle cannot do then I would suggest the JTech laser is more than suitable. But doing lots of the same cut would be better off on a 40W laser due to the speed. Guess it is the balance between your time/machine time/equipment cost over its lifetime and how many parts you want and of course only you can decide that.

Me? I’m quite happy having the laser cut out a battery tray for an RC plane or say a rocket engine mount in 3mm ply (see this) even if it takes a few hours because I’m usually only ever making one at a time. Even then, I only reach for the laser to cut it if the spindle cannot because of the inside corner issue/or other fine details are needed.

Which reminds me, must measure and draw up the battery/equipment trays for my new RC plane before I build it. Having the ability to produce spares was actually the main reason I bought the X-Carve in the first place :smile:

Cheers

Ian

46

J-Tech now offers a 3.8W laser kit which would cut somewhat faster then there 2.8W unit.

1 Like
48

I agree, there are times when sharp corners are needed as well, but you will be surprised at what those 1/32" end mills will plow through given the right feed/speed combo. I was definitely surprised once when I forgot to set a better safe height and it cut right through my oak clamp. :wink:

49

Thank you everyone for your replies. This is looking more promising the more i read about it.

@IanWatkins
Would you be willing to share the automated script/macro?

50

@KenPhuong

Don’t have a file as such I can share so I’ll walk you through it.

Simple project, mark a single, 5mm x 5mm square using a single pass. Design in Easel using a 0.1mm DOC and make the material 0.1mm, that’ll give you a single pass. Set your automatic spindle control to request 18,000rpm (which gives full duty cycle on the PWM output). Then export the gcode.

This gives me this:

G21
G90
G1 Z3.810 F228.6
M3 S18000
G1 Z3.810 F228.6
G0 X10.000 Y10.000
G1 Z-0.100 F228.6
G1 X10.000 Y10.000 F200.0
G1 X5.000 Y10.000 F200.0
G1 X5.000 Y5.000 F200.0
G1 X10.000 Y5.000 F200.0
G1 X10.000 Y10.000 F200.0
G1 Z3.810 F228.6
M5
G0 X0.000 Y0.000

Looks good, will go set machine to mm units, go to safety height (3.81mm), turn on the spindle, move to top right of the square, lower to 0.1mm below your set zero point and then start carving. At the end of the cut, it’ll go back to safety height, turn off the spindle then return to zero in the X,Y.

First of all you want to remove all you spindle switch on commands. Simple search and delete all of these entries:

M3 S180000

This should make your gcode look like this:

G21
G90
G1 Z3.810 F228.6
G1 Z3.810 F228.6
G0 X10.000 Y10.000
G1 Z-0.100 F228.6
G1 X10.000 Y10.000 F200.0
G1 X5.000 Y10.000 F200.0
G1 X5.000 Y5.000 F200.0
G1 X10.000 Y5.000 F200.0
G1 X10.000 Y10.000 F200.0
G1 Z3.810 F228.6
M5
G0 X0.000 Y0.000

Then search and replace on all Z moves to safety height and changes them to spindle off commands. So replace:

G1 Z3.810 F228.6

with:

M5

giving your gcode now looking like this:

G21
G90
M5
M5
G0 X10.000 Y10.000
G1 Z-0.100 F228.6
G1 X10.000 Y10.000 F200.0
G1 X5.000 Y10.000 F200.0
G1 X5.000 Y5.000 F200.0
G1 X10.000 Y5.000 F200.0
G1 X10.000 Y10.000 F200.0
M5
M5
G0 X0.000 Y0.000

This gives duplicate M5 commands but does no harm. If you don’t like it you can always go through and remove duplicate commands.

Final step is to search and replace on Z downwards movements to -0.1mm to switch the spindle (laser) on. Search and replace on your step down commands, in my case 0.1mm.

Search for:

G1 Z-0.100 F228.6

replace with:

M3 S18000

This gives you a final gcode looking like this:

G21
G90
M5
M5
G0 X10.000 Y10.000
M3 S18000
G1 X10.000 Y10.000 F200.0
G1 X5.000 Y10.000 F200.0
G1 X5.000 Y5.000 F200.0
G1 X10.000 Y5.000 F200.0
G1 X10.000 Y10.000 F200.0
M5
M5
G0 X0.000 Y0.000

This job, when sent will move the laser to the top right corner of the square, turn on the laser, mark the full square, turn off the laser and return to X0, Y0. (No Z movements at all, so you don’t need to set zero/focus again if you decide you want to run it again to make it darker. It sounds a lot more complicated than it actually is.

Obviously, with cutting, you’ll probably need to do multiple passes but the same principles apply.

Hope that helps

Ian

2 Likes
52

@IanWatkins
Thank you! I’ve earmarked this for future reference once ive gotten the laser module ordered.

1 Like
53

A new version of PicEngrave Pro 5 is now available for download. Unlimited user named Profile settings are now able to be Saved/Opened for different engraved materials, Pre/PostCodes or CNC machines has been added.

http://www.picengrave.com/PicEngraver%20Pro%205%20+%20Laser.htm

1 Like
54

In my single car garage (rental home), I continue to fight with the homemade safety box I set up initially for the laser add-on. I finally laser cut out the panels to create a box. I did a bit of a chop job on the backside trying to set up the ability to raise and lower the box. I suspect if I had to do it again, I would also laser cut out the lines on the back.

Original set up:

IMAG2318.jpg2688×1520 1000 KB

Updated:

2015-12-23 15.56.30.jpg4032×3024 2.08 MB

Youtube video:

I likely will play with this some more but I like it so far. I did see that as some one walks up to the garage, they can see under the bottom (1/4" approx. open) so I set up the rest of the orange acrylic to block that view.

2 Likes
55

Good job making that ingenious, simple addon to block the laser’s beam. :wink:

happy holidays.jpg690×507 266 KB

1 Like
56

Thanks. I could have sworn that I had seen it elsewhere but could not find the same box through the various forums. I would have liked to give credit where credit is due but have been unable to find the source picture again. So for the individual who made the original simple box around the laser- thanks. I like it and definitely enjoy having the significantly reduced footprint around my set up.

1 Like
57

2016.jpg476×750 481 KB

1 Like
58

We needed a new 2016 Calendar for the office, so we decided to laser engrave one on 1/8" Birch Ply. We added a border with the Laser Edge option in PicEngrave Pro 5. The engraving is 10.5" X 10.5" in size and the 3,062,617 lines of gcode was streamed to grbl with PicSender.

2016 Calendar.jpg580×573 352 KB

3 Likes
59

Nice !!!

1 Like
60

Thanks Hugo.

1 Like
61

How long he was doing it ??

Here is some of my tests. I use for now Inkscape Plugin: Raster 2 Laser Gcode generator

20160108_175453.jpg1536×2560 887 KB

Width: 70 mm
Heigh: 120 mm
Speed : 800 ( on next test i give him 1200 or 1400 speed and see the time)
Power : S600
time: 26 minutes

62

I can’t remember exactly the time it took, but it was a few hours.

Nice job. Looks like the Inkscape plugin only does 1bit black & white laser engravings. On our Calendar, we used varied intensity to engrave 8bit shades.

1 Like
63

Yes. Its only black&white laser engravings but i think to buy Your software :slight_smile: but not now. Now i must make some huge size modification of my x-carve.

I make another test with Ronaldo on 1200 speed and now is 20 minutes.

64

Time is not as important to us than quality is. We do offer our PicLaser which is a less expensive image to program. It even has it’s own image editor like our full version does.

http://www.picengrave.com/PicLaser.htm

Don’t let the name fool you. It can be used for generating X,Y & Z gcode for spindle engraving images also.

1 Like
65

I use PIcengrave as my primary gcode sender when I am not using Easel. I used UGS at first but found that I like the Picsender better.

1 Like
66

this is so sweet lol I want a LASER!!! (sharks optional for now)