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John Kleiber
11-04-2016, 12:10 PM
I did know what to type for a search term, so I am posting this thread.
RDWorks8 Yesterday Lasers text line all at once on my C02 rotary laser, today it lasers 1 letter at a time.
The only thing I did at the end of the day was turn off the C02 and left the RDWorks8 running.
I get in this morning, turn on the C02 to do more testing and now it lasers each letter.

What setting dictates all at once, versus one letter at a time marking?

Gene Uselman
11-04-2016, 12:22 PM
Try ungrouping and re-grouping? Gene

John Kleiber
11-04-2016, 12:32 PM
I tried that at your suggestion, nope, still one letter at a time.

I also deleted the text line, and recreated it, still same.
All it is, is a line of text.

346902

Scott Marquez
11-04-2016, 12:56 PM
Do you have it set up to cut or engrave? It sounds like it is trying to vector cut.
Scott

John Kleiber
11-04-2016, 1:26 PM
I have it set to "scan" not "cut".

Other than interval and cut/scan, I have left all setting as installed by default on the following screens.

Settings:
346903

I will need to brush up on my Chinglish to see what exactly Scan Mode does.
346904


What started all this was an experiment with powder coated stainless cup. Red powdercoat is a tough nut. On my 60w C02, my settings which seem to give the best results are:


2 Passes @ 15 Power, 450 Speed, .04 Interval


A painfull 12 minutes per pass and the text is only 37mm wide x 8 mm tall. argh...


346906


One little trick I did try which seemed to make things easier was to not mask the area with tape.
Instead I put an ever so light coat of liquid hand soap on the surface.
Seems to protect the original surface from smoke, no weeding and washes clean.

Wilbur Harris
11-04-2016, 4:34 PM
Uncheck "Independent Output". That's why it's engraving one letter at the time....don't know how it got that way.

Bill Carruthers
11-04-2016, 5:06 PM
Uncheck "Independent Output". That's why it's engraving one letter at the time....don't know how it got that way.
Yes "Independent Output must be "unticked" - it seems like V8 of RdWorks occasionally defaults to independent output being on. I have no idea why??
Also OP try upping your power(to like 80-90%), slowing your speed(+/-200mm/sec) and set your scan gap to something more like .08 or .1. Play around with it.

Kev Williams
11-04-2016, 5:46 PM
Why are you using only 15% power? And .04 interval ("gap" in my software) is much tighter res than you need for PC cups,
a .06 interval is 435 lines per inch, that's plenty for this type of work. It's almost a given that you'll need to run 2 passes,
I know I have to--one to get thru the PC to the metal, the second pass to clean up the goo left from the first pass...

You need plenty of power to get thru powdercoating, and you have plenty with 60 watts, so use it!

Try this experiment:

Put down the text (or graphics) you want to engrave. Paint it black.
Copy and paste it in the exact same spot. Paint that one green.

Set your machine to run BLACK at 70% power and 500mm/sec. Set interval to .06
(I chose 70% because that's pretty close to 100% power for many glass lasers, mine included)

Set your machine to run GREEN at the same power and speed, BUT set the interval at .10 ...
Make sure the machine engraves black first, green second.

The machine will run the first pass approx. 20% faster than your original first pass,
and the second pass will run nearly twice as fast as the first pass.

Second pass doesn't need run at a high-resolution interval for cleanup.

FWIW, I engrave leather at .15, and it comes out just fine... :)

John Kleiber
11-05-2016, 3:54 PM
Thanks Bill, your suggestion to de-select Independent Output worked.


I never changed that. I guess RDWorks just gets a mind of its own sometime.

John Kleiber
11-05-2016, 4:08 PM
Kev,


Thanks for the advice. I setup 2 layers and placed them in the order suggested.


Masking Tape

Powder Coat (RED)
Stainless Cup


Here are the setting I used:


BLACK/GREEN
70/50 annealing
60/50 annealing
50/40 annealing


40/30 better
30/30 best (so far)


I guess my 60w runs hotter. After washing the cup I could clearly see the stainless was darkened while running higher power.


As I gradually reduced the power of each layer the darkness lessened and a decent bright stainless substrate was revealed.


Needs more fine tuning though.

Kev Williams
11-05-2016, 6:43 PM
Well, sorry for having you roast the stainless! Glass tubes if nothing else are quite proficient producing heat. My Triumph will darken stainless at higher power and lower speeds, but then, the stainless I have experience with is probably a LOT thicker than what your cups are made of.

Since you have more than enough power on tap, be sure to run the machine at full speed, at least for starters. Many machines can be set up in the parameters to run up to 1000mm/sec. My Triumph came with a default max of 500, it's actual max is 800. You might check to see if yours can be sped up, if not already.

A 3" lens would help with the annealing problem too--