Settings for Engraving Discrete Separated Dots

[Charles Rudisill]

Hello Everyone,
I finally got the new (used) 25 watt Epilog Mini up and running. What a cool tool... Thanks to those who responded. And a thankyou to the Epilog Technical support; they were very helpful and courteous, even though the unit was purchased used.

I was wondering if anyone could help with what settings in the Epilog print driver, and in Corel, would produce a (preferably random, or regularly spaced) pattern of single pulsed, non-overlapping dots for a simple grayscale image. If the beam is 0.005" on average, then a dpi of less than 200 could produce discrete dots. However, in playing around with the image types, resolution, DPI settings etc., these grayscales seem to be engraved as "clusters of dots" of various configurations, separated by spaces between the groups. Is there a way to make the grayscales print with separated single pulses (until of cours the resolution exceeds 200dpi). My apologies if this is an obvious question! Thank you! Charles

[Dave Jones]

If you send a grayscale image to the laser then the laser must engrave dot patterns to try and simulate those shades of gray (except in 3D mode, which is a whole other discussion).

In the Advanced tab of the Epilog driver you can choose "Clipart" and "Photograph". If you choose "clipart" then the driver creates halftone patterns to simulate the shades of gray. These are patterns of dots in a grid and when engraved you'll see various patterns for each of the shades of gray.

If you set the driver to "photograph" then the driver creates dither patterns to simulate the shades of gray. These are much more random looking patterns and do not follow a grid like halftone does. They don't really look like patterns. They are merely spacing the individual dots closer or further apart to simulate the shades of gray.

A third alternative is to create whatever dot patterns you want yourself, and to only send pure black/white to the laser instead of shades of gray. In other words, convert the shades of gray yourself into whatever dot patterns you want. The resulting image will be pure black and white, no shades of gray, so the laser will fire exactly where you place every dot. Most paint programs can convert shades of gray to halftones or dither patterns, or can allow you to paste your own dot patterns into sections of an image if you wish.

[Charles Rudisill]

Dave,
Thanks very much, I've been tinkering with settings and making progress. Thanks again, Charles