Trotec Job Control, programming in a pause to deal with soot?

[Joel Ifill]

Ok, so I have been engraving and cutting a lot of cork on a 45W speedy 100. It engraves really nice but it definitely flares up when cutting that leaves nasty soot on the top surface. To combat that I used a trick I picked up of cutting through a wet piece of paper towel. It leaves no soot and prevents any flare ups.

Problem is I can't raster engrave through the wet paper towel so I have to let the job get towards the very end of the raster, pause, place paper towels then resume job. On the trotec if it starts a vector line it won't stop until the line is complete, in my case that means it will cut the entire outline before it will pause.

Is there any way to program in a pause or job stop? Or will I have to do other work arounds like make one plate and image fo for raster engraving, and one for cutting? Final question anyone know other tricks for preventing soot to get on the top surface of of cork, or ways to wash it? I was thinking some type of wax but doesn't seem any more practical than the paper towel trick.

[Andrew Holloway]

You could set up 2 different materials: One that just has rastering (set your preferred colour to engrave and all other colours to positioning or skip) and the other that just has cutting (set your preferred colour to cut and all other colours to positioning or skip).
Then just run the job as the first material setting then add your paper towel and switch to the second material setting and run again.

I use this idea for a variety of reasons on certain jobs.

[Gary Hair]

Why not use air assist? I would think that should eliminate the flare ups.

[Joel Ifill]

air assist is on, perhaps I should verify output flow but there still seems to be flare ups.

@Andrew
That's a very good idea I would not have thought of that.

[Jiten Patel]

I second Andrew - use that method all the time. Alternatively, set up one material - go into the setting and switch off cutting, run the job, do you paper towel trick and switch the material. Turn off rastering and enable cutting again. Job Control retains the setting, so you can switch them on and off without losing the settings.

[Dan Hintz]

Have you considered using a low-tac transfer tape? Easy to remove and all of the soot will be on the tape. Engrave from bottom up.

[Tony Lenkic]

+1 what Dan said.
Instead of low tack I use medium tack and it works great.

[Mike Null]

And I use high tack which, I swear, is not tacky enough.

[Kev Williams]

transfer tape being useful is directly proportional to the time it take to weed it all out.. simple shapes, ok-- lots of interior holes, nooooooo....

(but that's just my opinion)

I've come up with a simple solution to my soot problems. Not perfect but it helps a lot:
I put a basic fan just outside the cabinet and let it blow across the work area.

It depends on if you can open your lid slightly. (I can on all my machines). This REALLY works well when doing leather. I get zero soot now, whereas I used to almost ruin the leather trying to clean the soot off
(and I tried transfer tape, nooooooooo..... ;)

Creates a smokestorm in the cabinet, but the blower's take care of it.

[Mark Sipes]

if I understand the problem correctly. Why not send the job to the laser with with the border/cut selection on and in "Job Control Parameters" turn the cut color feature off...... then after the raster has occured, turn the Cut Color back on, use your paper towel, and select the art but just select "Repeat Cut Line"


.

[john passek]

I was just going to suggest that Mark, I do it quite often.

[Ross Moshinsky]

Two main ways to handle it, without talking about how to reduce soot.

The first is send over the job to JC with the cut & engraving. Turn off the engraving and just do the cutting. Then turn off the cutting and just do the engraving. The only downside is if you forget to do one step. The other option is simply to send two files over. Send one with just the cutting. Send another with just the engraving. Either works just fine. I use both methods regularly. It all depends on what I'm doing which method I choose.

[Matt McCoy]

How thick is the cork?

I had occasional flare-ups with 40 W lasers, but not with my 90 W. I assume it is due to the increased speed at which I can cut. A little dust from engraving, but easily removed with an air compressor.

I use air-assist and do not use transfer or masking paper. I'm not aware of a way to remove the burns caused by flare-ups. Hope that's helpful.

[Joel Ifill]

Thanks everyone, I'm going to try "trick" of just disabling the cutting color while it engraves, can't believe I didn't think of that.

I also might split the job as I routinely cut the same shape just with different raster art.

[Dan Hintz]

transfer tape being useful is directly proportional to the time it take to weed it all out.. simple shapes, ok-- lots of interior holes, nooooooo....

(but that's just my opinion)


A misting of water will make low-tac transfer tape practically fall off... shouldn't harm the cork, either.