RDworks and creating efficient files

[Jason Hakki]

Hi guys,

I recently bought a Ray Fine 80 watt laser cutter. I'm still learning on it. I am currently cutting a plaque with a small boarder, some text, and two images at the bottom. Right now it is doing the vector scan, and it seems very wasteful that it is sweeping the whole plaque to do the boarder and ignoring the images. Is there any way I can get it to do both the images and vectors at the same time? Is this typical or is it operator error?? I'm sure there is probably a simple way to create a more efficient file.

Also, do people who bought chinese laser cutters stick with RDworks or is there better software out there?

Much appreciated! 348230

[Bill George]

Hi guys,

I recently bought a Ray Fine 80 watt laser cutter. I'm still learning on it. I am currently cutting a plaque with a small boarder, some text, and two images at the bottom. Right now it is doing the vector scan, and it seems very wasteful that it is sweeping the whole plaque to do the boarder and ignoring the images. Is there any way I can get it to do both the images and vectors at the same time? Is this typical or is it operator error?? I'm sure there is probably a simple way to create a more efficient file.

Also, do people who bought chinese laser cutters stick with RDworks or is there better software out there?

Much appreciated! 348230

Its not doing a Vector scan its doing a raster engraving. Vectors are continuous lines unbroken. With a vector the laser will be on 100% and be following a path.
Yes its operator error you need to learn how to create files with different colors Red is usually used as a vector path. Black or other colors are for raster or engraving images or the like. Its not the software, you just need to learn how to use it correctly. In the software you assign each color a certain function, power and speed.
Do a little searching on here, you will find a world of knowledge, and most of the Chinese laser software is pretty much all the same. Good luck.

[David Somers]

Hey Jason!

How do you like the laser itself so far?

If a piece of software can work with the Ruida board I suppose you can use that instead of RDWorks. Most of us tend to use Corel or Illustrator to do all our design work and then import it into RDWorks to send to the laser. I suspect we are all using very little of the "features" in RDWorks.

Having said that, your work order in a given job is based on the colors and their order. If you have lines marked in Red, Black, BLue and Green in that order, then the job is going to run Red first, then Black, then Blue, then Green. So you can control that kind of gross order with your colors and their position in the list. (you can move a color up or down in the list)

Then within a color you have some ability to affect how that job actually runs. You can determine start and stop points and movement. This applies to cutting though, not to engraving. Engraving runs more like a dot matrix printer and is not very efficient in terms of time taken to run. That is one area where there is a big difference between the western lasers (and especially Trotec) and the Chinese stuff. Western engraving is far faster for a number of reasons. Cutting is more equivalent though.

One thought that may or may not apply to your work. For the engraving. When possible rather than engrave I cut, but very lightly. I have some graphics that are "engraved" onto the top of some boxes I am making. While designing the graphics I took the time to do them up as vectors rather than raster. This took time, and in some cases I was working with a photo or scan to start with, and then converting it to an image I could engrave. Sometimes I used an autotrace to arrive at a starting point for the vector, sometimes I created the vector with the raster image as a lower layer to work over. Reworking it as a vector was time consuming. But man does it speed up the job. If you need to do fonts you can also do a search on line for "single line fonts." There are paid and free varieties. They are sometimes called engraving fonts. Those are capable of producing a much finer line than an engraved font, and will work considerably faster than if you are rastering a font.

You might ask Blanca at Ray Fine if there is another program other than RDWorks she might suggest. I haven't bothered since I actually basically use RDWorks simply as a tool to feed the laser from, and change the colors and power and cut/engraving settings for a given color. I usually dont use it more than that.

Hope this helps!

Dave

[Bert Kemp]

Simply change all the red lines to cut low power and the black to raster.regular power

[Jason Hakki]

Thanks guys I appreciate the helpful replies! Sometimes you know so little it's hard to know where to even begin. I'm coming from a CNC router background so I had no idea about the coloring different jobs but that makes a ton of sense.

And David I now understand why it would be very beneficial to cut lines lightly for a font rather than rastering it out which is very slow.


So as I suspected it's mostly operator error and a limitation of the machine (slow rastering). I will work to improve my work flow. You guys who use these machines all day every day know what's up and I appreciate the feedback!

[Bill George]

The other random thought of the day, when you finally hit on a setup in the RDWorks program that you like, as Vectoring and Cutting at a certain power and speed, Rastering or Engraving at another and its all working then do a Save As and name it Default or something like that.

When you start a new project and its more or less the same, open Default and then Save As your current project. Frankly I used a LaserCut Chinese program and did not have any issues, or not enough to spend more money on another controller and software anyway.

I have been very impressed with Ray Fine customer service and looking forward to getting my Ray Fine fiber laser next week.

[Brian Book]

Hello all .... a newbie here and have just ordered an 80W Ray Fine and talking with Blanca she suggested Corel Draw or AutoCAD .... I won't be getting my machine until January but really looking forward to new adventures :)

Brian

[Bill George]

Hello all .... a newbie here and have just ordered an 80W Ray Fine and talking with Blanca she suggested Corel Draw or AutoCAD .... I won't be getting my machine until January but really looking forward to new adventures :)

Brian

Corel Draw and I use X6 and it works for me, also have a couple of CAD programs, but really Corel will do everything you need for most Graphics work.

[Jason Hakki]

Just a big thanks to all you guys who weighed in!

I had to cut two of these plaques. The first one took 1 hour and 15 minutes, the second is nearly done after about 10 minutes. I took your advice, set up different colors for different processes and did the boarder which was a vector by doing a cut rather than a scan.

Much appreciated!

[Bill George]

You have enough power to vector cut maybe up to 6 or or even 8 mm thick wood. You might need to slow it down a lot to do so, but its very possible. Slowing down to cut is normal. You just need to do some experimenting.

[Kev Williams]

That border you have on the plate, as drawn, is going to have to full-sweep almost the entire plate just because of the thin vertical borders on each side.

There's 2 alternate ways to draw up that border that will REALLY speed up the engraving--

One way: Break the border up into 4 separate rectangles, align and butt the edges together, and make the vertical sides different colors than the top & bottom (which can be the same color)
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BTW, I drew this box approx 4-3/4" long x 3-1/2" tall, border width just under 1/8" thick--
This way, the sides will run individually, but even so, it's MUCH faster than sweeping all the dead space between them.
If your machine is capable of "Y-Swing" engraving (rastering in the Y axis), then just set up the vertical borders as Y-swing and you're golden!


This is my favorite way since my metal lasers will NOT engrave in the Y axis, but you need Corel or another program that can continuously add outlines or inlines.
Here, I used the Contour tool, and entered a space value of .004", which is usually fine for wood. In the contour icons, I'm up to 26 lines with about 3 or 4 left to get to the original inside border line.
at .003" spacing it takes 39 lines. This sounds like a lot, but the horizontal borders are going to take that many passes to raster them. What you do with these lines now is vector them. You will be able to run them at full speed, but you need to figure out the power, which will be quite low. The machine then just runs around in 'circles' running the lines until it's done. Depending on the overall size of the border, this method can be 10-20x faster than full-sweeping the whole border at once...

348249

[Jason Hakki]

Bill - I actually have been able to cut 3/4" wood with my laser cutter in two passes and 1/2" cedar in one pass. Going 12mm/sec at 80% power. Not sure if this is good, bad, or average.


Kev - Thank you, that's actually what I did! I used the offset feature in RDworks, however it's a pain in the ass because it doesn't do a repeating offset, I had to manually do it four or five times. I chose too small of a gap, .1mm, but hey I'm learning right!

[David Somers]

Jason,

Did the Ray Fine folks put a milliampere meter on the laser for you? If not, you may want to add one. You could grab a 30 or 50ma analog meter for around $9 or less on Amazon. They are 2 wire units. Easy to wire into the laser. The main purpose is to make sure you dont exceed the power rating of your tube. For example. I have an EFR 80watt tube (ZN-1250) EFR documents pretty clearly say that if you keep the power to it at or below 28ma you will get maximum life from the tube, which is rated around 10,000. For me that is 80% power in my RDWorks settings. The unit is also a nice diagnostics tool to have wired in if something goes wrong. And yes, you could use a multimeter if needed. But for $9 what the heck.

[Jason Hakki]

No ammeter unfortunately. I do plan on putting one on. I haven't ran my laser cutter over 80% so far just because of the lack of ammeter. I'll have to look up the process for connecting an ammeter, I'm sure it's easy.

[John Lifer]

Jason, if you want to watch a few YouTube videos showing an Englishman learning the rdworks software do a search for the rdworks learning Lab. Ignore a lot of them, but probably 10 have good basic use of the software. makes it seem easier. Hope mine gets here next week!
Shipping challenges! Blanca is good, but when she make a mistake it hurts! I've lost a week plus the holiday weekend waiting on her and the freight line arguing over delivery and payment.

[Bill George]

No ammeter unfortunately. I do plan on putting one on. I haven't ran my laser cutter over 80% so far just because of the lack of ammeter. I'll have to look up the process for connecting an ammeter, I'm sure it's easy.
Actually its a DC milliamp meter 0-50 or 0-100 would work, goes in the negative or ground lead of the tube power supply.

[Brian Book]

Hi David .... do you have the same Laser as Jason ? ... I also didn't get Ray Fine to install a Ma analog meter and noticed there are different sizes and wanted to order one now so I'll have it when the machine arrives ..... do you have a picture where you installed analog meter ?

Thank you for all and any help:)

Brian

[David Somers]

Hey Brian!

I have a laser from the same company as Jason, Ray Fine. Mine is an 80watt EFR tube, 900x600 bed with a very deep Z available. I put my milliamp meter on myself. Didnt think to ask for one when I did my order. The are very easy to add in.

Here is one unit from Amazon I just looked up. 50ma is fine. With something around 28ma being the max for an 80watt tube (roughly....varies with brand and model, but close) this is fine.
348302
And this is a photo of where I put it on my machine. I made a little finger joint box from plywood on the laser and put the meter in that. There is a small hole in the case I made to pass the wires through. Bill already described the wiring above. Very simple.

Hope that helps!

348301

[Kev Williams]

My Triumph came with 2 mA meters- but then, it's designed to run 2 tubes. Been considering getting the second one, but for now it wouldn't be much help :)

FWIW, with my power set at 70% and my water temp at 19c, I'm hitting between 27 and 28mA... 80% puts me well above 30...

348322

[Brian Book]

Thank You for the reply David .... will have to get one off eBay .... Amazon Canada doesn't carry that one :(


Brian

[David Somers]

A 30 ma unit would work fine too if your maximum power for the tube is 28. I like doing 50 just because. They are cheap at least.

Kev,

That is interesting. I wonder if it is a difference in the ma meters or if our power settings are set that much differently? Anyway...glad I am looking at ma and not relying on the power percentage in RDWorks or in the Ruida display console on the machine. Actually, for a short session it might be interesting to see what it actually ends up being. Hmmmm.

[John Lifer]

Thank You for the reply David .... will have to get one off eBay .... Amazon Canada doesn't carry that one :(


Brian

Before you buy a meter, ask Blanca if it comes with one. the 1300x900 has one installed as oem. But not as many bells and whistles as the smaller machines.
Maybe certain size machines are offered with different base items. I have no Idea....

[Brian Book]

Thanx John I sent Blanca an email and I'll see what she says.

Brian

[David Somers]

Brian, while you wait you might want to check the RECI web site for the model number of your tube. It should show the operating parameters and as part of that tell you the power levels you want to stay at or below for maximum life. I suspect they may be different than my EFR tube. It will also show what they consider the ideal coolant temp to stay at or below.

Also, I found their manual to be a bit vague in describing things like mirror alignments and lens and lens and mirror cleaning, etc. Ray Scott has a decent documents that are more in depth on those techniques on the rabbitlaserusa.com web site. He has very kindly kept those in a public facing folder and they apply to most Chinese machines. You might find them helpful.

[Jerome Stanek]

here is the one I installed

[Brian Book]

Hi David .... I am also getting EFR ZS-1250 CO2 80W LASER TUBE WITH10000 HOURS LIFE TIME .... I'm not sure if that is the same as yours .... and looking on Laser Tube website it has the same perimeters as you I believe .... I upgraded the Chiller to the CW 5000 .... but I will definitely look at the site you suggest for more info for setup and maintenance .... Thanx again

Jerome that looks like a pretty good spot for a Meter .... I'm not sure my case is the same .... really won't know until I get my machine :)

Brian

[David Somers]

Brian,

I have the slightly older ZN series tube, but they are largely the same.
The only reason I made a wood box for my meter was that meant I only needed to drill a hole big enough for the wire to pass into the case. Flush mounting it like Jerome did meant a much bigger hole. Not a problem to do. I just chose not to make that big a hole. The case itself is large empty so you have tons of options for placement.

Dave

[John Lifer]

Yep, I went back and looked and that is the same tube that Blanca has spec'd for EFR. Hopefully works well. Maybe ONE DAY I'll be able to tell you guys!
Darn thing is still in Shipping H&LL. Brian, make sure to factor in some delays!
BTW, David has mentioned in the past the numerous Chinese Holidays.

Here is a link for 2016. http://www.timeanddate.com/holidays/china/

There are 40 on the list! a BUNCH in early February! I got caught in the National Golden Day Week! which is 9 days when you include the Special Worker's Holiday!

[Brian Book]

Hello again ... Well it turns out my machine is coming with a DC Milliamp Meter :)

I sent the funds on Friday and she said they should have it by Tuesday and she would need 7 days to build and another 40 days for shipping and clearing customs .... hoping to have it by January sometime :(

Thanx again for the insight :)

Brian

[John Lifer]

Build time is what is normally stated and Mine ran about two weeks plus holiday. but she didn't quote the 40 days,
It took 16 days crossing, first port to LA. And getting off ship and thru customs only 4 days.
But delays after that.

And it sat a week prior to shipping. Mine was roughly 38 days Payment received, to shipping add the 16 day transit is 54, 4 for customs, is 58 and you have to pay them and arrange freight. I've got approaching 10 day delay with invoice for shipping and I've got at least a week to ship across country. Was hoping for Dec 2nd at latest, won't happen.

I'd say give it 60 days, plus shipping from port to your location. You might gain the 7 ours sat as they only ship on Saturday. (missed my a day making ship)
My estimate is End of January :-)

[David Somers]

I agree with John! You need to maintain a sense of zen calm for this process.
Mine actually moved quite quick, and I gave Blanca permission to play with the timing of my order if she faced some rush jobs. I was not in a rush other than simple anticipation. My problem was it arrived in Puget Sound (Seattle) at the beginning of the great Shipping Slowdown caused by a longgggggggg negotiation process of wages and benefits. My ship sat at anchor off in the sound for many many weeks. I could see my laser and CNC from the house. They were out on the Lido deck with umbrella drinks, reading novels and playing shuffleboard. They seemed quite content. Hopefully things move faster for you!

Dave