Deep engrave bitmap

[Ricky Mai]

Hello,

We recently bought a 30W fiber laser from China that comes with Ezcad software.
The most important job we want it to do is deep engrave a fingerprint in metals.
When we import a black-white jpg/bmp and start engraving the marking is very shallow. Even after engraving 50x times with 30W and low speed.
Deep engraving with vectors goes deep, very fast.

I tried to convert the fingerprint to vector with CorelDraw, but the resulting vector is very messy. It isn't possible to get the hatching right in Ezcad.
Then I would need to find and correct all the errors in the vector file in CorelDraw, then import it to Ezcad and next select each segment seperatly in Ezcad to set the hatching for these segments.
This means a lot of manual work, which we would like to avoid.

Is there a way to engrave the black segments in black-white bitmaps just as deep as with vectors?

[Tim Bateson]

What are your Raster settings?

[Kev Williams]

All EZcad will do with bitmaps is create a dithered halftone, so power is 'buffered' (for lack of the right words)-- it basically sweeps the work like a gantry machine would

The only way you can have a hatch fill is if you have something TO fill, meaning you need closed (outlined) graphics. You need to be able to create a toolpath, aka vectored outlines, of what you want filled. Corel will do this, but as you stated, it's very messy. But there IS an adjustment to check-- Hit the "tools" tab, then drop down the "workspace" options. A ways down you'll find Power TRACE... Click on that, and check the slider--

Default is "higher performance", at the left end. Right end is "higher quality"...

If your slider is on 'performance', slide it all the way over to 'quality'. This will make a BIG difference in the quality of the outlines. I use the "outline trace/detailed logo" options, and actually have pretty good luck with it.

If your slider is already on 'higher quality', then.... well, learning to edit out the bumps comes next ;)

...or find a different vector program, or have someone create the art for you...

[Julian Ashcroft]

I gave up on raster images or bitmaps after my first try, I convert everything to a vector image now. I use Inkscape, which works well for raster to vector conversions. I save the dxf pretty large, such as 300 x 300mm so when I import it into EZCad the image is huge compared to what it will end up being. I just click the 'Auto connect curve' which seems to take care of all disconnected lines, hit apply and then reduce the image down to what I require. I haven't really played around with hatch settings too much, I usually run two hatches, one at 0 degrees and the other at 90 degrees, both at 0.05mm line distance and run at 100% power. Most of the time I just run it once and on stainless steel you can feel the engraving quite easily with your finger nail.
346895

[Ricky Mai]

Thank you for the input everyone! I'll check the auto connect curve setting.
I'm aware of powertrace and also use this, thanks. I discovered that with the smart fill tool you can get perfect vector segments from messy segments. Now i don't need to fix all the errors.

[Ricky Mai]

What are your Raster settings?

Which raster settings do you mean?

[Bill George]

I just have the Demo of EZCAD but yesterday I just did some text and exported as a DXF or AI file and hatched in EZ. It looked at least on the screen anyway to be nice and solid.

[Kev Williams]

One my friends (and part time customer ;) ) is a retired MC Colonel, I did this for him the other day--
This literally took less than 5 minutes from finding the pic to finished product--
I found the pic, resized it, made it grayscale, inverted it, adjusted the contrast a bit, imported it,
made it fit, and ran it at my default settings (for anodized)-

347058

-- it's like a hologram, angle it in the light just right and the image inverts. Anyway, very cool stuff,
BUT, the laser was only 'grazing' the surface even at full power. There's NO way that bitmap-engraving
will ever get any deeper than 'superficial'.

FWIW, this is chrome, not SS...