Hi
I’m probebly using the wrong tool for the job but oh well… using a Basic hobby laser cutter with Carbide Create for converting and arrangeing the vector files into G-code (which i need to do ALOT of editing before it’s ready… shame i can’t edit the basic output mode as there are quite a few things that need to be done for me… oh well)
The problem is soild areas for laser engraving. After having to create a custom tool setup for the laser head, I have been trying using ‘texture’ for filling in the areas but that’s been a bit erractic in places… I did think about Pocket but I’m not sure if that is the right one or best… Cause it takes me quite some time to clean up and edit the G-code outputted, I’m just wondering which is the best mode and way to deal with laser engraving large solid areas (fill-ins)…
any advice or tips would be great. I’ve tried a few other programs but this just seams the easiest and more useful to me, despite it seaming like i’m using a square peg which will FIT in the round hole, but far from a perfect fit.
I suggest you use the right tool for the job. LaserGRBL (free) or Lightburn (inexpensive and worth every penny) would make your life much easier with little to no post processing required. I love Carbide Create for my Shapeoko 3XXL but use Lightburn for my diode laser. They have fill, laser power, and other tools that were designed specifically for lasers. You can get your drawing worked out in Carbide Create then save an SVG to import into the laser software of your choice. Toolpath generation in a software made for lasers is the way to go.
“Texture” is definitely the wrong toolpath, it’s aimed at making semi-random patterns with an endmill.
The closest match to a laser fill would be the “Engrave” toolpath, for example with a 0 degree angle and small stepover. You could try that if you want to stick with Carbide Create, but I can only agree with @LWSIV that if you do a lot of laser engraving, laserGRBL or LightBurn will be vastly better (just because CM was never intended to be used for laser jobs, while those two were only ever intended for it)
I’m looking at LaserGRBL as I don’t think I use it enough to be worth spending money on the software right now (it’s a hobby machine with an… interesting set up).
I don’t see an ‘engrave’ toolpath option… just contour, pocket, texture, drill, VCarve and Advanced VCarve…
I’ll try out LaserGRBL for a bit and see how it get on with that… thanks both of you
well… testing a bit with LaserGRBL… can’t seam to get the hang of things… doesn’t seam to allow me to have some as cutting lines and some as engraving lines… while the vectorising thing says it’ll fill in the solid areas and it’s preview window looks fine, the main preview shows them as either empty or looking like the infill is VERY far apart to a point where it doesn’t fill in… Looking at the exported gcode, its not filling in the areas at all… making that bit a complete failure…
trying the demo of Lightburn and it seams better BUT… i’m not totatlly impressed with it’s vector tools, mostly when it comes to solid areas being shown in the preview and working out the engraving lines… and it’s preview mode won’t show the engraving at all… only cuts so without trying it out for a run, I can’t even tell if it will engrave or not… also, it doesn’t seam to want to allow for toolhead offsets that well… I think… I’m having a bit of a hard time figuring out what it thinks and doesn’t think… But i’m trying it out…
I use LightBurn with my SO3 for laser engraving quite a bit. Maybe if you can share your file or a sample file one of us could help out with setting you up.
The preview (Alt-P) should show the engraving lines (it does for me), for shapes that have a mode of “Fill” or “Fill+Line”, and are set to output. What interval are you using for the solids? I typically use an interval of 0.0015" to 0.0039" for fills on my 4.2W diode laser. Smaller intervals preserve more detail but take longer.
You can actually export the paths as an SVG for more detailed examining. Select the object, then go to Edit → Convert to Cut (Debug). That will make a new object that is the tool paths. You can then export it with File → Export. Can be useful to see in more detail the tool paths being generated, or to load them into Carbide Create if you want. That is how I generate etching tool paths for MC Etcher using a zero offset contour.
my laser is meant to be about 5w output but i have some… doubts as for its true output power (but not really any way to test it) though its fair enough for me.
the interval is set as 0.100mm but i don’t fully understand that ‘interval’ but and stuff so if you think 0.040mm would be better (about 0.0015") then i can try that. One problem at the moment is the engraving bit are die face as seen in the file i linked to, and it doesn’t want to keep the pips unfilled when it fills in the faces… despite them being solid… so… tricky… does seam to be appearing in the preview now though
The interval is the spacing between each pass of the laser. If you zoom in on the preview you can see the individual lines going back and forth of each pass. With an interval of 0.1mm, it will take 10 passes to fill in one mm of height. At 0.04mm it will be doing 25 passes to fill in that same mm. So the laser lines will be much closer together (depending on the focus of your laser they could be overlapping), which gives more detail and a darker fill. The risk is if the passes are overlapping you can really cook the material you are drawing on (which could be good if you want it really dark…or bad if you burn it away to nothing).
As for the pips, what you want to do is select the dice, then ungroup the objects (Arrange->Ungroup) , then weld the objects (Tools->Weld). That should fix them so the pips are holes in the dice face.
well… right now… I’m having problem with the Z origin… with the machine offsets, mine has it as the centre point… Lightburn doesn’t like that and while i tell it the laser offset to what i believe at the right values which should then make it centred, it doesn’t want to do that and just starts tracing out the lines from the origin point… Post processing work i need to do on the gcode to get it ready is faster… just need to change the command lines due to my unsusual setup which is easy… though it wants to set the travel speed as WAY too high (the machine uses mm/s… even when i set lightburn into mm/s mode, it then seams to think it’s really mm/m and then converts the number… but i’ll keep at it and try to figure out a way to edit stuff…
I can see what your getting at but due to the unuseal setup, some things like the M commands for turning on and off the laser need to be changed.
I’ve disabled laser offset and changed the origin point to bottom left and it KINDA works now … BUT…offset issue… if i move the head into the centre, and THEN tell it to run it’s code, it seams to move to the right place…
I think i can deal with… i got an idea what might be up… a couple of the commands it uses i don’t understand but that’s no problem… running a test run now…
eh… I must say, while lightburn removes a bit of work as i don’t need to add ‘G1’ to all the burn lines which Carbide doesn’t add (I think my firmware doesn’t like it without that infront of each laser line), so less processing work, though I can get around that, just takes a bit of time… the quality i’m getting from Lightburn isn’t fantastic in that the engraving lines are closer together but overall, not MUCH of an improvement, and i can probebly just tweak CC’s settings to improve that… also, i can’t get Lightburn to align correctly… I even tried some engraving which i got it to start right, but it cut a couple of travel lines and then tried to do the next bit of engraving WAY off in the wrong place…
So for the price of the software (£50) and that I’m just using it to convert to Gcode… CC is probebly working out better for me… even more so if a couple of features could be added… which i might look into putting in a feature request
So thanks for everyones help but these seams to be where i’m at
