China Built Corel and Grayscaale

[Brian Robison]

Hi,
amember me?
Anyhoo, I have a question. I bought a big Rabbit laser a while back and once you figure it out, it's OK.
It does most of what I bought it for anyhow.
Problem is because of the newer Leetro controllers, the corel plug in doesn't work.
I also thought it would work with gray-scale but is doesn't , yet my understanding is that
some Chinese machines do.....
I guess this was more of a statement than a question....

[Keith Winter]

Does the leetro controller use RDworks 8 (laser works) or something else? In RDworks you really don't need the plugin, it doesn't take much longer to just save the file in an older format and then just import into rd works. Not really the solution you are hoping for, but a quick workaround. I hope it helps.

[Brian Robison]

I use Lasercut 5.3.
Should have been called P.I.T.A. 5.3....

[David Somers]

Brian,

I don't have lasercut so I can't help you directly with that question. But have you called Ray Scott at Rabbit for help with this? He may be able to offer you some solutions.
Regarding your missing the plug in.....I use it out of laziness. But there are times when the fuller feature set of RDWorks versus the Corel Plug in is quite useful. To the point where I was considering simply using RDworks directly and skipping the plug in. Plus, by doing that I have the ability to reduce RDworks to an icon. With the plugin it insists on remaining in the forground. I can move it out of the way, but it is always present in the foreground somewhere which is annoying, to me at least.

Remember too....greyscale is simply dealt with by assigning each level of your gray scale to a color in RDWorks, and then assigning that color a speed and strength setting. So long as you can work with 8 or 16 colors in Laserworks (I am assuming you can....perhaps incorrectly?) you can do the greyscale work you referred to.

No matter though. Try talking with Ray at Rabbit and see how he can help you. And if really want to move to RDworks and the current control he may be able to help you with that as well?

Dave

[Keith Winter]

I use Lasercut 5.3.
Should have been called P.I.T.A. 5.3....

haha! Sorry I don't have experience with that software but I feel your pain! Hopefully someone else with lasercut will chime in...

[Keith Winter]

BTW I saw your post in the forum below. Maybe Rabbit has an update for the software?
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?222654-New-Leetro-release-Lasercut-6-1

[Kev Williams]

Have no idea what controller my Triumph uses, and it also uses what seems to be very uncommon "phCad" software (aka "Lasersoft")...As for grayscale, it won't do it directly, but it has a 'dithering' choice; you import a jpg, then choose 'dither' and choose a dot size in mm. Then it creates a black/white halftone to engrave... looks like below. In mine, the dither option is in the "operate" tab, and also a 1-click button, it's on the bottom, the one that looks like a small checkerboard. Just wondering if yours has a dither option?


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

http://www.engraver1.com/erase2/dither2.jpg

[Brian Robison]

I've tried Ray, never did get the plug in to work due to the newest Leetro controllers.
He also let me know it wouldn't do grayscale after I bought it. I've been using Universal one touch.
Looks to me like the Lasercut 5.3 won't even import a photo unless it's 1 bit black and white.
BTW I've had it for a year and a half so I'm pretty familiar with it.
It's OK, it's just WAY different from the Epilog when it comes to sending a job over.
For repetitive stuff it's just fine.

[David Somers]

Brian,

Apologies. I think I misunderstood what you were referring to with gray scale. What I was thinking of was having an image with 8 to 16 different line groups in it, or bitmap groups. Doesnt matter. Each group gets assigned a different color. And in your software each color gets a different speed/power level assigned to it. So you can create a bas relief image with depth. I see what you are referring to now.

Another thought you might check out are some of the plugins for Corel that can take a bitmap and convert it to various line patterns that emulate gray. You can find some that use cross hatching, bit map patterns, pencil drawn patterns, etc. All produce a sense of gray while each element of the image is actually a black. Would that help you at all?

I attached one image I modified this way, and the resulting engraving. The material I engraved to has a very thin layer of either a white clay or a white Gesso on it and a dark layer beneath so any engraving simply results in a white space or a dark space. See what you think.

333993

[Bert Kemp]

JUst save your corel file as a dxf and import that file to lasercut easy pezee, don't know about the grey scale never needed it


Hi,
amember me?
Anyhoo, I have a question. I bought a big Rabbit laser a while back and once you figure it out, it's OK.
It does most of what I bought it for anyhow.
Problem is because of the newer Leetro controllers, the corel plug in doesn't work.
I also thought it would work with gray-scale but is doesn't , yet my understanding is that
some Chinese machines do.....
I guess this was more of a statement than a question....

[Martin James]

Hi Brian, The rdcam controlers do grayscale and the leetro controlers do not. At least as far as I know. ( i have rdcam) Are you already lasering 3d grayscale files with your epilog? I did a lot of cnc milling from grayscale filles in the past, so I would be interested to see what you are working on.

Cheers. M