set up help

[Bert Kemp]

I have several different shaped and size flat objects I want to engrave, and would like to do several at a time.is there an easy way to do this.

[Bill George]

Do the Files one by one and then Import via Corel into the named file your going to cut / engrave from. Take into Lasercut or I just use the ULS printer driver. It will do them one by one, I have done up to 30 at one time, no reason it could not have been 100 or more if I needed.

[Bert Kemp]

Not sure I understand what you mean or maybe you don't understand me. I have 100 flat rocks that I want to engrave. there all different shapes and sizes and I want to engrave a different name on each rock. There pretty close in thickness so I'm not worried about focus just how to lay them out to engrave and get it where I want it :confused:



Do the Files one by one and then Import via Corel into the named file your going to cut / engrave from. Take into Lasercut or I just use the ULS printer driver. It will do them one by one, I have done up to 30 at one time, no reason it could not have been 100 or more if I needed.

[Gary Hair]

Wait until Glowforge comes out - with its built-in camera you should be good to go!

[Mark Sipes]

:banghead: :banghead: :banghead:

I CAN TAKE 1 MINUTE TO RUN ONE OR 150 MINUTES TO SETUP A JIG FOR 100 ROCK ALL DIFFERENT SIZES......AND WAIT 2 DAYS FOR SOMEONE TO TELL ME JUST TO RUN THEM ONE AT A TIME... OR THREE DAY TO BUILD A JIG YOU WILL ONLY USE ON THIS JOB..




MERRY CHRISTMAS


.

[Bert Kemp]

Great Idea Gary I'm ordering 2 as I type so I can do more rocks at once:p


Wait until Glowforge comes out - with its built-in camera you should be good to go!

[Bert Kemp]

I've been banging my head are you taking over for me:D



:banghead: :banghead: :banghead:

[Jack Clague]

Bert have you considered making a jig not to hold the stone but to place them roughly centered.

example: you cut a jig out of any material lets say wood which has for example 20 square holes in it equally spaced apart, the holes are bigger than your biggest stone, after its cut you draw pencil marks on the center of each side of the squares so you can get a good estimate when placing a stone inside

then use this jig template in Corel to position your engraving names centered to each individual "square"

place the jig in the machine with your stones in the center of each "square" and jun the job, if done right the laser should engrave the name centered to each square hole which will have your stones in

[Kev Williams]

Bert, no real easy way to set up a matrix of different shaped parts. Easiest layout setup I can think of would be to lay out some 1/2" (or narrower) tape on the table at specific coordinates, and visually center the pieces to the tape---

In this example you can just edit the text for each of the 6 next pieces while 6 pieces are running... just beware of the max length of the piece. If the pieces are odd-shaped, small variances in off-center won't matter much...

If it works satisfactorily, you could add extra rows easy enough...


http://www.engraver1.com/erase2/tapelayout.jpg

[Bert Kemp]

Kev and Jack I'll see if these ideas work, I know they will just figure out the easiest and try it thanks guys.
also while banging my head I was thinking lay a bunch of them in the scanner , scan them then trace them in corel the lay out like Kev Or Jack said . Like you said no easy way but something should work better then 1 at a time LOL

[Jack Clague]

I kinda like Kev's idea, just make sure you get the spacing on the tape pretty accurate

[Mark Sipes]

Bert.. this reminds me of a story from WWII where the General called the Engineer Captain into a staff meeting. The General asked the Captain how long it would take to draft up a plan to build a bridge to cross a major river in support of his Advance. The captain called the General the next day and told him the bridge was in place, the plans will require 2 more days to prepare!!

[Scott Shepherd]

Or the easiest way.... "Sorry, we don't engrave rocks" :)

Thanks for that story Mark, that's a great one and so true. Some times it's easier to just power through something.

[Gary Hair]

In all seriousness... I have 350 stones to engrave and they are all very different sizes and shapes. One option would be to apply stencil to them all, laser, then sandblast. The better option was to have professionalmask create photo-resist that I'll apply to the stones and then sandblast. It cost me just over $200 for the stencil and will take about the same time to apply them as it would have to apply the stencil that I would have lasered - and I would still have had to laser them! Considering they are not flat, not the same shape, not the same size, and not the same thickness, I would have been lasering for days - trading $200 for pre-made stencils was the best use of my time/money on this job. You might want to consider the same option.

[Bert Kemp]

Spending money on a free job is not an option:D Time I have Money I don't. I'm engraving or attempting to engrave

USMC US ARMY USAF US NAVY and Coast Guard on flat rocks to give to Veterans as worry stones or what ever. I did a few singles and the guys love em.

[Bill George]

Sorry we don't do rocks. If we did it would cost you $10 each, and no quantity discount. ok.... I think you just said "never mind" :rolleyes:

Ok its for a Vet, yes we can. Would they fit in a egg carton centered in each hole and if the focus was off a bit or the not centered would it make a big difference?

[Bert Kemp]

Like this :)327784

[Gary Hair]

Maybe if you contact Ikonics or professionalmask they could donate some to you - never hurts to ask!

[Steven Cox]

Hi Burt, I used to engrave small rocks like those on the spot at some festivals. I made an insert out or a flat piece of thin metal sheet (white colorbond) than I placed on the main table in the laser. I then had a paper template that I created on CorelDraw & printed it out on an A4 sheet of paper (see attached Corel file). The "template" is just a series of oval shapes. I held down the A4 template on the metal sheet with some magnets then positioned the rocks that I wanted to engrave over each of the ovals just visualising where they would sit and then held the rocks in place with some more small magnets. With this particular template I could engrave 9 rocks at a time but you could easily fit more than that.

On my Insert metal sheet I also glued some guides to it giving me a top-left guides to align the sheet of paper to. This insert was very useful for all sorts of templates that I regularily used.

Hope this helps Steve.



327818

[Bert Kemp]

yep think I just start building the bridge lotta good ideas coming tho




Bert.. this reminds me of a story from WWII where the General called the Engineer Captain into a staff meeting. The General asked the Captain how long it would take to draft up a plan to build a bridge to cross a major river in support of his Advance. The captain called the General the next day and told him the bridge was in place, the plans will require 2 more days to prepare!!

[David Somers]

Bert,


One way to do this would be to get some silly putty and some thick card stock or a hunk of plywood. Doesnt have to be thick. Silly putty the rocks on the card stock in the oriention you want them. Scan them and bring into Corel. Place your text/graphics on each rock. Take the cardstock out to the laser, lay in the laser, your cardstock will keep them aligned. Burn em. Go do it with another batch. Your lettering can then be burned onto each rock and placed for the best use of that rocks space.

A second option would be to lay a line of masking tape across your table. Lay more tape down perpendicular to the horizontal line of tape. Do it by measurement so you can use those measurements in your corel software. Lay out your text or graphics in Corel centered on each cross point for the tape. Then on the laser lay your rocks down at the crosspoints lined up to present the best surface for the engraving. Burn em. Remove them, lay out the next batch, burn em. etc.

The second method will be fastest. The first method involves a bit more but gives you more control over the text placement on each rock.

And Mr Bert!!! A delightful and extremely happy Christmas to you!!!! And to rest of you folks as well!!! Merry Christmas everyone!!!


Dave

[Bert Kemp]

Hey Dave that first Idea is what I'm working on because I can place the text better. :)

[Scott Shepherd]

Bert, try modeling clay. I use it all the time. You can push the items down into the clay and you'll be set. I put clay in a ziplock plastic bag. That way it doesn't leave a clay residue on the items I'm engraving. I've done a lot of items by just pushing them down into the clay. It works really well. If you wanted to, you could cut some squares out of a piece, say every 3 inches, then put clay in the bottom. Use the square cut outs for placement and eye balling, then use the clay for leveling and holding tight.

[Scott Marquez]

If you have a honeycomb table, place a sheet of plywood on it.
In your design program, set up your columns and rows with the text that will all be the same, using your judgement as to how much space to leave between each one, then place some sample text as a placeholder for the text that will be custom.
Send it to the laser and burn the image on the board, now you can go back and edit the custom part and send it to the laser to be engraved on your stones. Use your pattern that you burned on the board to align the rocks, using the clay to hold the rocks flat.
Scott

[David Somers]

Kev! Apologies. Didnt see your tape idea earlier in the thread! Didnt mean to repeat your thought in my post!!! Great minds think alike! <grin>

Dave

[Jeffrey Dewing]

I have used sand. I made a tub or used a cookie sheet. Put sand in it and used a stick to make lines in the sand. This made a grid with 4 inch marks I could use as center marks for my objects. Then I used the same stick to level my objects, ( being different thicknesses,) and used wood shakes to level the corners of my cookie sheet into focus with my laser head. I was lasering glass madalions with cermark glass and ceramic paint. It turned out to be a fast easy way to pump out 100 of these animal vector outlines on glass for a client of mine. I found it easy to work with and clean up was a breeze.

[Jeffrey Dewing]

I use a cookie sheet with sand. Use a ruler to mark off sections 2", 4", what ever you need and place rock in the centers. I use the same ruler to make sure they are all the same, and level to my focus tool with shims under corners of my cookie sheet! I was doing animal figures on glass medallions. Worked like a charm for me...

[Bryan Spiegel]

Bert, try modeling clay. I use it all the time. You can push the items down into the clay and you'll be set. I put clay in a ziplock plastic bag. That way it doesn't leave a clay residue on the items I'm engraving. I've done a lot of items by just pushing them down into the clay. It works really well. If you wanted to, you could cut some squares out of a piece, say every 3 inches, then put clay in the bottom. Use the square cut outs for placement and eye balling, then use the clay for leveling and holding tight.

Silicone safe modeling clay (used for making silicone molds) does not dry out very quickly.

[Bert Kemp]

Thanks everyone for all the Ideas. What I ended up doing after trying a few of the suggested methods was to lay out 25 rocks at a time ( remember I said they are pretty flat so they didn't need a lot of cushion) on my scanner bed and scan the shape. took the scan into corel saved as a dxf and loaded into laser and did a very fast engrave on a thin piece of Plywood, yes it still took a while but it was a very light engrave at fast speed. I then put my text into the corel shapes, place the rock on the plywood in the right shape for the rock lowered the table to focus for the rocks and engraved it worked pretty good:) Took some time but I have time .