Tips for optimizing cutting?

[David Fairfield]

I'm cutting some parts with many horizontal and vertical dashed lines, in straight vectors, like this _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ but the laser doesn't just follow the lines. It does a cut here and a cut there and then comes back to a dash, and goes somewhere else and then back to another dash. I guess there is some logic in the software that makes it do this, but the cut quality is better, without tremors, when the laser follows a straight path.

I've tried the driver settings, but no change. Is there some way to trick the laser into following the dashes, or otherwise adjust the order in which things are cut? Maybe group them in color mapping? Rather avoid making changes to the graphic, it would get complicated.

Thanks for any ideas. :)

Dave

[Jeff Belany]

I know this is pretty basic but on my Epilog you can set the vector to 'optimize' and it helps quite a bit. I assume you've tried this since you do a lot of cutting. Otherwise, can you make the dashes in a color and then the laser will do one color at a time I believe. I know that worked on the last machine I used.

Jeff in northern Wisconsin

[Glen Monaghan]

How did you create the dashed lines? If you made individual dashes and duplicated them to create the various lines, then the individual dashes are probably not in the order you want (use Object manager to see this). Try either making individual lines and then using node editing to separate a solid line into a dashed line, or select all the dashes that are supposed to be one line and either combine or weld them.

-Glen

[Roger Leiva]

I think in an article in the Technical Library Epiloglaser.com, was an article that can help you. "Using Raster Color Mapping to Save Time Engraving, 11/30/2006."

-Róger Leiva (Costa Rica) Helix 24 60 Watt.

[Craig Matheny]

try to merge the lines this seems to put things in a better order as it is now one item.

[John Noell]

Are you printing from Illustrator or CorelDraw? And can you post the file?

[Richard Rumancik]

David, if all the entities are separate objects, then it is a much easier task. If you have closed paths then I don't really know how to tackle it. Also if they are on different layers it becomes complicated.

Suppose they are all separate line segments, on a single layer. What I do is take the file, select the first line, and send it to the back of the layer. (shortcut is select, shift/pagedown.) Then I select the second line and do a shift/pagedown. (This sends the line behind the first one that was sent to the back). Eventually all the lines are sequenced, and the first one you sent to the back has now really been pushed to the front.

My laser cuts in sequence back to front on a layer (not sure if they all do that or if it is driver dependent). In any event they will be sequenced one way or the other.

It also helps if all the vectors in a "row" are pointing the same way. If they are not, you have to reverse the direction of the curve to optimize the cutting time.

Not sure if this procedure will help or if you will find it too slow. For one-off it is too time consuming but for production it can be worthwhile.

I don't think there is an automatic algorithm that will sort like this. They use the criteria of "closeness" of the vectors to each other, not necessarily cutting all the x-direction first and y-direction next.

[Adrian Hernandez]

I agree with Craig;
I own a Chinese laser machine and there is a feature that allows you to unite all the lines that are broken into a continuous line; there is also the object management feature that helps the laser machine to process the job in the order that is more convenient for you.