Vector engrave boarders with Corel?

[Shawn Handley]

Greetings,

I am looking to speed up a MAJOR hold-up on my machine and I wonder if anyone can help me out.

I am looking to eliminate the rastering of boarders. Our boarders are usually entire lengths of the bed of the Epilog we have. I am looking to do this by vectoring a few times around. Has anyone done this before? I am thinking 10 lines with a very small offset but I have no idea.

I have done individual sides as raster and though this cuts down the engraving time, it still takes a bloody long time.

I am using reverse laser engravable material (Rowmark).

If you don't know what I am talking about, just ask. I will be happy to give any further info.

[George D Gabert]

Shawn

Roy Brewer gave a good way to speed up borders a while ago. Try this http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=137469

GDG

[Rodne Gold]

You can draw the border as a box and use the countour function to make it the thickness you desire (using a contour distance that will make the multiple lines engrave with overlaps ) and then vector engrave em

[Scott Challoner]

Like Rodney said. I usually make them .007" apart and make as many as needed for the border thickness you need. I also lower the table by about .080". This makes the beam a bit wider for more overlap.

[George D Gabert]

You may also look at changing your lines per inch in rastering to reduce the number of passes to get the engraving quality.

GDG

[Shawn Handley]

George, Rodney, and Scott: Thank you for the replies.

I tried the contour tool and it worked beautifully. The only problem I have is that it produces a very rough looking boarder, especially in the corners. I tried both filleted corners (which I usually use), and I tried Square corners. Both look squirlly. I used .007 with 13 steps to make a 2.5mm boarder. I used 100% Speed and 20% Power, two passes. I tried 3 different samples so far and the one that is the furthest out of focus with filleted corners looks best.

I can see that I am on the right track and I realize that this will take some tinkering.

Here is a photo of what I mean (a little blurry but you get the picture)
http://i419.photobucket.com/albums/pp280/Shandleyman/Engraving/BoarderVectorIssue01.jpg


Any more tips?

[Scott Challoner]

Like you said, it will probably take some tinkering. I usually go 40-50% speed. You can get a little deflection going around corners at 100%. I usually have my ppi up around 1000 too. For you I think that means a frequency of 5000 or so.

[Richard Rumancik]

You said you used a .007" offset to make the border. I think your offset is too large for your beam width. More than likely your beam width is .005" or less so you may see gaps between. I would suggest .004" offset if you have a .005" beam. The out-of-focus option, if not too much hassle, will give a softer vector line. But going out of focus can be a pain if your laser won't do it automatically (since you have to remember not to engrave the text out of focus.)

You probably want to adjust spacing so you don't see the "furrows" with the naked eye. You are on the edge, so any wobble in the path going around the corner will show as a gap. Not sure why some of your passes look deeper than others.

[Rodne Gold]

The reason your corners are "rough" or not 100% engraved is cos of a ramping function in your laser - basically the laser will reduce power as it slows into corners if ramping is on (or off , different makes differ)...otherwise it would engrave more deeply on non straight line vector paths
See if your machine has some sort of setting to turn it off/on or fine tune it and try it.
There might be something like enhanced vector mode that can be toggled too.

[Shawn Handley]

Man oh man, I have tried everything I could to get those corners even close to good. Color mapping with a whole bunch of different settings, a closer contour spacing, I even called Epilog to see how to turn off the ramping (and apparently, you cannot). I tried different focus levels with no luck. I am already doing the raster on one side and then the other but that too takes a long time and leaves a small amount of deeper engraving where the lines meet.

If anyone has come up with a solution for the epilog machines, please let me know.

Thanks!

[Larry Bratton]

Man oh man, I have tried everything I could to get those corners even close to good. Color mapping with a whole bunch of different settings, a closer contour spacing, I even called Epilog to see how to turn off the ramping (and apparently, you cannot). I tried different focus levels with no luck. I am already doing the raster on one side and then the other but that too takes a long time and leaves a small amount of deeper engraving where the lines meet.

If anyone has come up with a solution for the epilog machines, please let me know.

Thanks!

Why not raster the curved part and vector the other. That should still save time and smooth out your corners. Might be a little tricky to set up, but would probably work.

[Shawn Handley]

I would love to; however, I have tried and never got the vector to line up properly. I suppose asking for perfection with a $30,000 machine is too much. :P

... and yes, my x-axis linear encoder is clean.