Semi Structured Approach to Getting Started

[Linn Meyers]

Hey All,

Another new guy... who's read almost every post in the forum in the last few months while saving for a machine. Learned enough to not burn the house down so far. Ended up with a Boss 1416 60W. Been cutting and engraving some cheap birch ply for a couple days and it's going pretty well considering the editing limitations of the RD Works Software. Was recommended to get Corel X6 by the folks at Boss. Been watching Corel tutorials on Youtube and have at least a grasp of what's involved. Right now I"m just using fairly decent graphics from the net and having fun.

So anyway, if you were to start all over again... What sort of structured approach would you recommend? On the hardware side of things I'm thinking maybe take a day or two to dial in my settings on different substrates and engrave/cut a power/speed model for each.

Software wise I would imagine it's taking baby steps and increasing complexity. The other possibility is just winging it on whatever challenge I stumble into.

Any/all advice appreciated.

[Bill George]

Trial and error and take notes.

[Linn Meyers]

Story of my life.... Except for the taking notes part. ;-)

Only just recently learned the hard way, that the only way I learn anything is the hard way.

Linn

[Mike Chance in Iowa]

Hey All,


Another new guy... who's read almost every post in the forum in the last few months while saving for a machine. Learned enough to not burn the house down so far. Ended up with a Boss 1416 60W. Been cutting and engraving some cheap birch ply for a couple days and it's going pretty well considering the editing limitations of the RD Works Software. Was recommended to get Corel X6 by the folks at Boss. Been watching Corel tutorials on Youtube and have at least a grasp of what's involved. Right now I"m just using fairly decent graphics from the net and having fun.


So anyway, if you were to start all over again... What sort of structured approach would you recommend? On the hardware side of things I'm thinking maybe take a day or two to dial in my settings on different substrates and engrave/cut a power/speed model for each.


Software wise I would imagine it's taking baby steps and increasing complexity. The other possibility is just winging it on whatever challenge I stumble into.


Any/all advice appreciated.

You're on the right track so far Linn. Reading through the old forum posts and bookmarking threads you would like to reference later is great for learning.

As for taking a day or two to dial in your settings. LOL Plan on doing that on a regular basis. You will always be testing out new substrates and figuring out new settings.

Once again, with software, I find that is something that will always change over time. Someone will come along and ask "Can you do .....?" and it will give you a new challenge to figure out.

As for things I would do different from when I first started - and that I do now.
1. When I work with something unusual, I jot down notes in the Corel file itself. Such as a text box indicating what the unusual font's name is that I converted to curves, or specific engrave/cut settings that worked for that substrate.
2. When testing new substrates that I plan to work with on a regular basis, I would do a much better job testing them. For example, if I plan to use sell a plaque made from a specific species of wood with a certain type of finish, I would engrave test boxes from 10% black to 100% black using say 100 speed/100 power, then again at 90 speed/100 power etc so that I have a sample piece I can refer to later on and I can quickly see what % black and what speed/power looks best for the project I need.

[Linn Meyers]

Thanks Mike!

The test panel thing is exactly what I was thinking. I imagine it takes some time initially but well worth it in the end.

As far as dialing in settings goes I already figured out how far I can go in this birch ply without hitting the second layer of ply.

Linn

[Don Corbeil]

Trial and error and take notes.

+1!
I have a little black book where I store all my technical notes for each trial, sample or final run. I can't remember how many times I've had to come back to that to look up what settings I used, or how I created a particular file. And there's been times where I didn't write something down and sure wished I did.

[Linn Meyers]

And I guess some sort of naming convention for files will be important. How do ya'll group files that you repeat periodically?

[Mike Troncalli]

+1!
I have a little black book where I store all my technical notes for each trial, sample or final run. I can't remember how many times I've had to come back to that to look up what settings I used, or how I created a particular file. And there's been times where I didn't write something down and sure wished I did.

+2

Same here. I have mine divided up into sections.. 1 section for Corel Draw steps, 1 section for the Laser software driver, 1 section for material database.

[Dan Kozakewycz]

2. When testing new substrates that I plan to work with on a regular basis, I would do a much better job testing them. For example, if I plan to use sell a plaque made from a specific species of wood with a certain type of finish, I would engrave test boxes from 10% black to 100% black using say 100 speed/100 power, then again at 90 speed/100 power etc so that I have a sample piece I can refer to later on and I can quickly see what % black and what speed/power looks best for the project I need.

I have several test files I use for this now. Basically just 10 lines of text starting at 100P/100S, working up or down incrementally to say 10P/100S or 100P/10S, or any other combination. Each line of text is a different colour, with the corresponding colour in the laser software (JobControl in my case) set to the settings denoted in the text. Takes a while to set up (I have several of these now, some will go from 50P/100S to 100P/50S, others will be smaller increments such as 50P/100S to 100P/100S etc) but now, it makes testing a new substrate super easy, I just pick the 'ballpark' I think it sits in, run the appropriate file and simply read off the settings of the best result! :)

[Linn Meyers]

I have several test files I use for this now. Basically just 10 lines of text starting at 100P/100S, working up or down incrementally to say 10P/100S or 100P/10S, or any other combination. Each line of text is a different colour, with the corresponding colour in the laser software (JobControl in my case) set to the settings denoted in the text. Takes a while to set up (I have several of these now, some will go from 50P/100S to 100P/50S, others will be smaller increments such as 50P/100S to 100P/100S etc) but now, it makes testing a new substrate super easy, I just pick the 'ballpark' I think it sits in, run the appropriate file and simply read off the settings of the best result! :)

Thanks Dan, Makes sense to me. I've seen some of your blueprint stuff and I like the concept. I'd like to find some "generic aircraft prints" to burn for some of Boeing/Bell/Lockheed Engineer Buddies.

Linn

[Mike Null]

I think you'll find that there are actually more than one "optimum" setting for several materials so prepare for a lot of notes. For the most part I file my settings by material and even by color in the case of some laminates. (several varieties of wood)

[Dan Kozakewycz]

Thanks! I've been doing a military Airbus A330-243 this week!

[David Somers]

Linn,

Don't know if this is a good tool for you, but I got hooked on a simple note taking tool called Workflowy at workflowy dot com. It is free. It is a text only indented note taking tool. VERY simple to use but all words in it are searchable. I use it with the laser by taking the URL for a given post or thread on Sawmill and pasting it into Workflowy. Easy to find later on when I am searching for things.

Dave