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Chuck Burke
10-18-2004, 10:15 PM
Hi All,
I need some help. I am trying to engrave the attached file onto a pressed board simulated oak veneer plaque from JDS.

I want the name portion to be engraved a little deeper so the letters stand out better. I have tried selecting just that section and engraving it twice, but I cannot get it to work. I am usind CorelDraw12 and a Pinnacle M-25 ( a.k.a LaserPro Mercury 30)

I have tried changing the background color fill from Black to another color and seeing if it would engrave at a different setting but that does not work either.

Any ideas you could offer would be greatly appreciated.


Thanks
Chuck Burke
Pacific LaZer Works
Woodinville WA.

Michael Wells
10-19-2004, 1:27 AM
Hey Chuck,
The easist way to do what you are trying to do, without a lot of extra manipulation is to use CorelDraw's Layers. It is precisely what they are for, I think! Hehehe Just set the Name that you want for a deep (3-D engraving, if your laser is set up for that) cut, on a separate layer and simply run (print) that cut at your increased settings without moving the piece, after running the first laser operation.

That all said, if the Pinnacle, supports it, which I think it does...you can also use the additional colors on your printer driver, with higher settings, on the main raster operation. If you had just hairline letters or outlines you could set those up as a separate color for a vector cut too. My rig supports 16 standard colors, so I can actually set up 16 different raster or vector operations on a single laser run.

Hope that helps!
Michael

George M. Perzel
10-19-2004, 7:09 AM
Chuck;
Mike's method should work well, but the Pinnacle (Laserpro) driver has the capability of handling it all from one layer.
Questions:
1. Does anything engrave?
2. Does the symbol engrave and not the text?
3. Are you using the Color fill mode?
4. Are your colors from the GCC 16 color palette?

George

Chuck Burke
10-19-2004, 11:59 AM
George,
Yes, everthing engraves during the first pass. I want to do the "name" part to be twice for more depth so I think Micheals idea of the layers might work. I have also found out about the "selection" feature in the driver.
No I am not using the gcc pallete ( at least I don't think I am ). Define Color fill mode for me please? I understand Color Fill, but not Color fill mode.
Interesting you should reply George, I was actually thinking of giving you a call on this, but I lost you number and besides it was about 9pm your time, so I shut it all off and went home.

Thanks
Chuck

Rodne Gold
10-21-2004, 12:58 AM
Did you try to turn colour management off in Corel , if its on the GCC driver doesnt see the colours as correct.

George M. Perzel
10-21-2004, 6:19 AM
Hi Chuck;
The Manual Color Fill mode allows you to set a power and speed setting for each of the 16 colors in the GCC color palette. This is the palette that should have been supplied to you with your machine and is loaded into Corel Draw and shows up on the right hand side. It is the only colors recognized by the GCC/LaserPro/Pinnacle software. As Rodne said, check and make sure your color management in Corel is turned off. Go to Tools-Color Management- and set Styles to "Color Management Off".
I assume you want the dark area behind the name to engrave deeper than the rest. Make this area a different color (say, blue) and then set the blue color in the pen tab to half the speed of the other engraving or twice the power. Select the Manual Color fill mode and print.
The laser should engrave all the regular text (assume it is black) first and then change power/speed and do the blue .
If this doesn't work, send me the corel file you are using and/or call me
at 585-924-4519. Email is perzel@frontiernet.net. Good Luck
George

Kevin Huffman
10-21-2004, 10:14 AM
Hey George and Chuck,

The Manual Color Fill only works with Vectorized images. That picture of the Rotary International is a bitmap or Rasterized image. For the Manual Color Fill to work you have to be able to assign a fill to it. You can't do this with a Rasterized image, it is just a bunch of little colored dots, no fills.

I know that picture is to low of quality to vectorize I have tried. I still have it on my desktop from when you sent it to me. I open it every once in a while and mess with it to see if I can get it vectorized but no luck as of yet. I will continue to work with it though.

The easyest way to get this filled is to recreate it, in engravelab or corel draw or any vecotizing program. When you create it in one of these programs, it will already have a fill. You don't have to recreate all of it, you can keep the outside sprocket and just lay over the top of it a blue ring and recreate the lettering. Lay it on top of the blue ring and engrave it that way. You will be able to engrave it all as one image and set different power/speed settings for the different colors that are vectorized.

Shaddy Dedmore
10-21-2004, 7:06 PM
brandsoftheworld.com If you have permission to use the rotary graphic, I know it's available as an eps there. (I heard it's a russian site that collects all the logo's, so make sure you won't get in trouble using copywrite stuff)

The rest is text and a square, so it should be pretty straight foward recreating as a vector graphic.

That is, if you're talking about Chucks orig post.

good luck,
Shaddy

Shaddy Dedmore
10-21-2004, 9:38 PM
Or, you might be able to use Power Clip...

Go to Tools - Options
Then under Workspace - Edit
Uncheck Auto-center new Power Clip contents

Then draw a rectangle around what you want to redraw. Select Everything (ctrl-A) then unselect the new rectangle (hold down SHIFT and click on it), then choose
Effects - Power Clip - Place Inside Container
The pointer will change to a big black arrow, then click on the new rectangle and you will only see the new rect and whatever it was drawn around.

I'd still use the delete method, (select everything but what I want to print... delete, print, then undo) but that's just me.

Shaddy

Chuck Burke
10-21-2004, 10:08 PM
Kevin, George and all,

I put that graphic in this picture just so I could show what I was trying to do. The actual graphic is a vectorized graphic that I found.
What I am trying to do is get the "name" part of the plaque to engrave TWICE. So far I have been able to make it work by using a Layer. But I have to engrave the plaque once, then go into the software, disable layer one, then engrave layer 2 and do it again.
This works, but I would like to know if I can get it to do it just by selecting that area.

I'm confusing myself....so I hope you guys can figure it out.


Thanks for all your help
Chuck

Chuck Burke
10-21-2004, 10:10 PM
Shaddy,
Thanks for the tip. I am not selling these, I am giving them to the Club I belong to as a donation. I don't know if I want to be selling Rotary items or not, but the licensing is not too bad if I do.
You show great integrity. Thanks Shaddy.

Chuck

Shaddy Dedmore
10-21-2004, 11:10 PM
Did you try using the Print Range "Selection" option?

Select what you want to print, then print... then choose Selection (see attached)

George M. Perzel
10-22-2004, 6:36 AM
Hi Chuck;
I'm totally confused and not sure what you mean as the "name". I had assumed this is the "Ibrahin Sial" area which you want the background to be deeper. I also assume this area is a raster image. If this is true:
1. Layout your entire plaque in Corel- send this image to the laser.
2. Remove all but the "name" area from your layout-send this image to the printer.
3. Laser the first file and then the second
Good Luck
george

Chuck Burke
10-22-2004, 8:30 PM
George,
Your assumptions are correct. And ultimately that is what I did.
Thanks for your help.
Chuck

Chuck Burke
10-22-2004, 8:36 PM
Shaddy,
Cool trick with the screen shot. How did you do that? Anyway, yes, I did try the selection feature and it did not work as advertised. It seemed that the laser had a mind of it's own, and would not go to where I wanted it. After the first print job, I selected the area I wanted to engrave again, went to the print drive and and checked selection. When I pressed start, the laser moved about two inches from it's "home" position (top right corner on the LaserPro ) and began trying to engrave. I even shut down EVERYTHING including the exhaust and air assist. When I tried the "selection" after the laser initialized, it when to the top middle of the plaque and started there......my laser is possesed.

Shaddy Dedmore
10-22-2004, 9:28 PM
Maybe you need a priest to help exorcize the demons.

I used good ol' Print Screen (Old School). Pressing that button on your keyboard will put a screen shot into memory (clipboard), then open your favorite graphics prog (I use Paint Shop Pro, but you can use Corel) and paste. Then I cropped and added the arrow.

lickity split.

Shaddy

Chuck Burke
10-23-2004, 12:03 AM
Being an old DOS fan, I remember print screen. Didn't realize it was still so useful..

Thanks
Chuck