Rastering in order?

[Russ Shoe]

Hey gang, Im usually good at searching stuff out here, 99.99% the answer is here! Anyways, We are doing some tags on a 20 tag layout thingy we made, would like this to laser each tag complete, then on to the next, like vector cutting, only rastering.

Our machine is a "vintage" Epilog Radius, the print driver will let us vector sort, nothing we can find to sort/print anything else. Color mapping is only avaible in vectoring. Any way to set the graphics/words in corel (X3) so they laser completely each tag, then off to the next? Right now, its lasering along the X-axis doing several tags, one laser line at a time. Maybe there is no such thing. Let us know

Thanks
Russ n Lori

[donald bugansky]

I think if you put each tag on separate layer, it may complete one tag before going on to the next.

Let me grab my Corel book and see if it works as I suspect.

Bugs

[Roy Brewer]

Right now, its lasering along the X-axis doing several tags, one laser line at a time. Russ,

Sorry, but no way on the Radius.

[Rodne Gold]

Is there a cluster setting in any mode in your driver (normally under stamp mode)?

[Shaddy Dedmore]

putting each tag on a different page might do it, it would take more of your time setting up each time, but maybe less laser time...

Shaddy

[Darryl Hazen]

Russ,

There is a way to do it in Corel. Open Object manager, select each object in the manager by clicking once. It will show you which item it is in the workspace. You can then drag the selection in the manager (not the workspace) toward the bottom of the list. The engraver should engrave them in order from the bottom to the top of the manager list. Hope this makes sense.

[John Noell]

Russ,

There is a way to do it in Corel. Open Object manager, select each object in the manager by clicking once. It will show you which item it is in the workspace. You can then drag the selection in the manager (not the workspace) toward the bottom of the list. The engraver should engrave them in order from the bottom to the top of the manager list. Hope this makes sense.
AFAIK that oly applies to vectors, not rasters. That's how it works for me.

[Darryl Hazen]

Not so John, I do it all the time when rastering artistic text

[Russ Shoe]

Very cool guys, looks like we have some experimenting to do. Will let you know,

THANKS!!

btw, this would be desireable right? Printing each tag complete would be faster then going across them line by line right? Dont need to be chasing this if its not worth it.

Not really tags, they are wooden drink chips, we made a jig that will do 20 at a time, usually theres a small graphic or logo, so thats what takes time, well, at least it seems like it takes time lol.

[George D Gabert]

You might also look at

Reducing the lines per inch. This will cover more vertical distance per step.

Moving the graphics in line so the laser skips the dead space.

Also move the graphics / chips closer together. Less horizontal travel.

Regards
GDG

[Lee DeRaud]

btw, this would be desireable right? Printing each tag complete would be faster then going across them line by line right? Dont need to be chasing this if its not worth it.Not necessarily. Unless there is a lot of white-space horizontally between each tag, it may actually take longer to do them individually.

[George Brown]

Lee is right, it takes a LOT longer to do them individually. I don't have my numbers with me, but seem to recall that the time savings may approach 50% compared to doing each individually. I always place several along the x-axis and as close as feasible and then raster the whole line at once. The starting and stopping of the head at each end is what kills you in time doing it individually.

[Gary Hair]

Printing each tag complete would be faster then going across them line by line right? Dont need to be chasing this if its not worth it.

It actually depends on two things - speed and white space. If you are running high speed, 80-100%, then it may be faster to do everything at the same time. With the time it takes to ramp up and down you may get better times even with a lot of white space. If you are running low speed, 10-20%, and have lots of white space, then you will get much faster times when you run individually. Without any significant white space it would be a wash since the laser would be firing the whole way across.

To test it all you have to do is send one tag to the laser and run with the lid open and then run an entire line with the lid open - see what works out to be the fastest per tag.

Gary

[Roy Brewer]

Not so John, I do it all the time when rastering artistic textDarryl,

You may want to check your work. Without Color Mapping, your Epilog 45w will start rastering at the top or bottom and work its way in the opposite direction regardless of Object Manager positioning.

Russ's (several generations old) Radius, however(and to the best of my recollection), has Color Mapping only for vector.

[John Noell]

Not so John, I do it all the time when rastering artistic text
I know that works if you convert the text to curves but you say it works without converting? Not for me. When I do multiple tags with artistic text and the tags are in a line, it does the top raster line of all then the next raster line of all etc., not by tag (i.e., artistic text block by text block).

[Gary Hair]

your Epilog 45w will start rastering at the top or bottom and work its way in the opposite direction regardless of Object Manager positioning.

My GCC/Pinnacle is the same way. Rastering works just like printing on a laser or inkjet printer - it starts at the top (or bottom) and prints line by line with no regard to the creation order or position in object manager. I think I could use color mapping to set the order of rastering, but I've never tried it, never had a need.

Gary

[Rodne Gold]

If you use cluster in your GCC driver you can force it to complete one thing at a time , for eg a line of badges will be done one at a time , not all in one go so badge 1 is finshed then it does badge 2 and so on.
Often this is quicker than having the laser scan from the first badge to the last especially if there is a lot of white space between rastered objects.

[Russ Shoe]

wow, lots of info to digest here, cool! thanks

will try some of these ideas. might do a test with the "drink chip" jig, laser some across check time, then the same down, see what happens. If its not a time savings, not worth messing around.

I know the driver for our Radius is lacking some of the bells n whistles, the only upgrade for it has been for XP and Windows 7,(and better then the original, which is wonderful btw, that Epilog "Dashboard" for newer systems would be a dream. I would asume that the driver for the Radius is the only one I can use, probally not any aftermarket drivers for Eppys.

Love our Radius though, love how far down the table goes, should have seen how big of punkin we engraved LOL. oh oh, and found a 8 point Deer skull, perfectly white....stuck that thang in there too....."The One That Got Away"...thats at a local pub on display.

[Roy Brewer]

I would asume that the driver for the Radius is the only one I can use, probally not any aftermarket drivers for Eppys.Russ,

I, like you, am proud that Epilog has drivers through win7(32bit), but do not hold your breath for either the Dashboard or 3rd party drivers for a system several generations old.

[Russ Shoe]

Just did a simple test, 4 tags vertical, then 4 tags horizontal, same tag order, speed, and power. Geeeesss not much difference, 2min33sec for the vertical, 2min36sec horizontal. hmmmmmm, unless there’s an 'easy' setting to change, not really worth it for just a few seconds. Just seemed to take longer going across......Perception is everything