Few more Job Control questions for Trotec Users

[Raphael Weil]

Rather than start a few threads I thought I'd condense these into one.

1) Anyone ever get a phantom pause while engraving? Not a big deal, just found it weird. Sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn't.

2) What do you guys do when your machine loses connectivity (to job control) mid engraving? It's only happened to me once. I was surprised to see I couldn't resume where I left off, or maybe I can and I don't know how? I ended up setting the power to 1, engraving my way back to where I was, and then pausing and jacking my power back up. Was lucky to have thought of that because it was a seriously expensive piece of wood in the engraver at the time.

3) Am I the only one who uses the outline function and absolutely hates it? I can't get over how poorly that was coded. Full Spectrum has it right, once you click the outline job button the laser head will move around the perimeter of your piece once and allows you to open the lid and position your material accordingly. From what I've done so far on the Trotec, you have to:

-set your laser where you want it
-position a marker to the laser
-trigger the outline function
-if you want to nudge your piece, cancel the outline function (which takes forever)
-return laser to marker position
-repeat

Is there a better way of doing that that I'm not aware of?

4) as a continuation to #3, the outline function only actually outlines the art work. So if you drew a circle on a white rectangle, Job Control only outlines the circle. I need it to outline the actual page border since I'm only concerned about everything in relation to my material. So far the only solution I've found to that is drawing a rectangle (in a very light grey that relief mode won't engrave) around the piece in my design which then forces Job Control to show me the edge of the page while running the outline function. The huge drawback there is engravings take way longer since the laser head must now travel across 100% of my piece. Again is there a better way?

[Gary Hair]

1. Yes. It's caused by the laser waiting for data to come from the computer. Can't tell you why/when, but it happens occasionally.
2. I've never had that happen so I can't tell you why. I think you came up with a great way to recover.
3. I've only used the outline once and that was to test it. There are so many other ways to get material aligned to a part that I think it's a waste of a feature due to the way a gantry machine works. On my galvo fiber it's incredibly useful and I use it on every job I run but that's because I can have it trace the job outline or the actual engraving.

Give some detail on your typical job and maybe I can tell you an easier way to get it aligned.

[Raphael Weil]

1. Yes. It's caused by the laser waiting for data to come from the computer. Can't tell you why/when, but it happens occasionally.
2. I've never had that happen so I can't tell you why. I think you came up with a great way to recover.
3. I've only used the outline once and that was to test it. There are so many other ways to get material aligned to a part that I think it's a waste of a feature due to the way a gantry machine works. On my galvo fiber it's incredibly useful and I use it on every job I run but that's because I can have it trace the job outline or the actual engraving.

Give some detail on your typical job and maybe I can tell you an easier way to get it aligned.

Hi Gary,

This Bowie one is very typical for me. It's really essential that the unengraved border of the frame be as even as possible in on all sides. The challenge is once in a while a frame might slip by with 1/32 or 1/16th defect. I make them myself and I do my best, but sometimes something isn't perfectly square. I thought about just making a jig out of wood to slot them in and I'd visually see the issue before needing to use the outline. Is there another way?

339972

[Raphael Weil]

Btw one other question while we're at it. Is there a spot on the bed that's more advantageous to place a piece to help the life of all the belts and motors?

[Gary Hair]

There are probably lots of ways to do it, but the first thing that comes to mind is to create a fixture with a cutout slightly larger than most of your pieces, then use that to center the piece and the artwork. You can do it by eye and be within a few thou. of an inch.

[Gary Hair]

Running in the same place may wear the bearing rails more in that area, but it shouldn't matter for the motors and belts. I would worry more about keeping the laser running (and making money) than where I'm positioning jobs in the laser.

[Raphael Weil]

There are probably lots of ways to do it, but the first thing that comes to mind is to create a fixture with a cutout slightly larger than most of your pieces, then use that to center the piece and the artwork. You can do it by eye and be within a few thou. of an inch.

Cool I think I'll do just that out of mdf.

[Gary Hair]

Put a couple of pieces of painters tape in the cutout so the part won't move when the laser changes direction.

[Kev Williams]

When I need dead-on accurate, I cut a hole in some cardboard for the part to fit into. I engrave 10 to 15 watches in one shot doing this.

I like priority mail boxes because they're thin and rigid and the bigger ones are usually big enough for fairly large items.

I'll cut the cardboard using my safety saw usually, or sometimes just a box cutter and straightedge...

I double-back tape the cardboard to my table. Lets say that Bowie on wood pic above is about 8 x 11", I'll make sure the cardboard is bigger, like 10 x 14.

I would carefully measure the wood (lets say it comes out 8.035 x 10. 885") then I'll draw a box that exact size in Corel, within the boundaries of the cardboard.

Cut the hole out, then test fit the wood. If measured correctly, it should fit near perfect.

Now, just place anything you want engraved within the box. Since the laser cut the hole, whatever you place in the box will be EXACTLY in that place on the wood as shown in Corel.
If you want a razor-thin 1/32" border on that wood, you can do it, and it'll be perfect... :)

[Keith Winter]

Raphael,
Gary and Kev have given you great recommendations, the outline feature is rather worthless since you can set points in Trotec and it is a GUI you see what you get interface. However I am curious as to the statement below. If your grey rectangle is not the same color as the circle engraving it should not travel that full distance of the rectangle when engraving a circle Unless there are other pieces in that rectangle being engraved like in that David Bowie rectangle.


So far the only solution I've found to that is drawing a rectangle (in a very light grey that relief mode won't engrave) around the piece in my design which then forces Job Control to show me the edge of the page while running the outline function. The huge drawback there is engravings take way longer since the laser head must now travel across 100% of my piece. Again is there a better way?

[Raphael Weil]

Raphael,
Gary and Kev have given you great recommendations, the outline feature is rather worthless since you can set points in Trotec and it is a GUI you see what you get interface. However I am curious as to the statement below. If your grey rectangle is not the same color as the circle engraving it should not travel that full distance of the rectangle when engraving a circle Unless there are other pieces in that rectangle being engraved like in that David Bowie rectangle.

Hey Keith. In relief mode you only use shades of grey I believe. So I have to use something from RGB 0 to RGB 255. Or at least that's what I thought. I could alway try something else. I use relief mode exclusively btw (my art requires it).

[Ivan Pavletic]

I had that sudden stop while engraving. It was heart stopping but everything turned out ok at the end :)
I had that connectivity problem from the beginning. It was faulty usb cable, and it was original new cable that came with laser! So I bought new cable and its working fine :)
For engraving custom things in weird shape, I always cut holes in 3mm mdf, about 0 to 0,5mm larger. Like this, every time I have same result. This is how I engrave on black acrylic for speaker amplifiers.

[Keith Winter]

Hey Keith. In relief mode you only use shades of grey I believe. So I have to use something from RGB 0 to RGB 255. Or at least that's what I thought. I could alway try something else. I use relief mode exclusively btw (my art requires it).

What happens if you set the layer you don't want to engrave to say green or purple. Does it skip it? It should be a color and not a shade of gray if you want to skip it. Not familiar with relief mode though.