Bottom-Up Engraving

[Bill Jermyn]

I've seen references here to engraving from the bottom to the top. Is this possible on my Epilog Legend 32EX? How is it done?

[Barb Macdonald]

Advanced, check off bottom up engraving. It only works with rastering, but it is great for keeping the text clean.
Perfect for dark backgrounds, with white letters.
Wow, I actually know something!
Hope someone, heck anyone's having fun in Vegas.
coldest day of the year, here.
Have a great day:)
Barb

[Mark Winlund]

The ULS system I have has a menu option as well for this. Unfortunately, the raster motion is only about 1/2 the speed compared to top down. There is a large delay between scans.

Mark

[Bill Jermyn]

Sorry to be thick, but where do I find 'Advanced'?

[Brian Robison]

Bill, not sure about the Legend but do you have the latest drivers and firmware? If not, go to the Epilog sight and download them.

[Jeff Gilchrist]

Bill, when you send a job to the printer it opens the print driver window the "Bottom-Up" control will be in one of those tabs. In version 7.08 of the print driver it is in the General tab. Just find it and check the box and your set.

[Mike DeRegnaucourt]

Bill,

I am not sure if the Legend 32 has that capability or not. I have the Legend 36EXT and it has the "Bottom Up" option in the print driver under the "General" tab. This is how it is with the latest print driver. The prior print driver used to have it on the "Advanced" tab.

You might have to visit Epilog's site and see if they have an updated driver for the Legend 32. It might be a situtation where the Legend 32 does not have that capability.

Maybe if Peck reads this thread, I'm sure he'll be able to shed some light if the Legend 32 has the 'Bottom Up' capability.

[Rob Bosworth]

Bill, Epilog developed the "bottom up" engraving capability for their newer systems a year or so ago. They have said that they would not retro the older machine drivers for that capability. Too bad. It comes in pretty handy at times. The only machines that will do it are the Minis, the Helix and the 36 EXT. Maybe their new little twerp, sorry I meant the Zippy will have that advanced feature. Sure wouldn't want someone paying less than what it costs to build a system to not have all the bells and whistles. (Sorry, I must have woken up on the wrong side this morning.)

[Tom Winters]

Now i am being thick, what are the real advantages of "bottom-up" engraving? My machines just converted over to this because of new software. I have never really looked into the matter, but now I am curious. ??

[Gregg Vaughn]

My Helix has the bottom-up feature, but I have also not used it. I just recently, through a thread on the Creek, found out about center-to-center and found that to be the best thing since sliced bread. What would be the ideal job that the bottom-up feature would shine at?

[Sandra Force]

You will find that bottom up engraving will give you significantly cleaner engraving, with less smoke fill in the lettering. That is very handy when using dark colors over light colors like black/white or red/white. This also makes for less cleanup on that type of engraving. It also works nicely on acrylic engraving and improves the clean look.

[Tom Winters]

Is there any advantage top-to-bottom engraving has over bottom-to-top?

[Gregg Vaughn]

Sandra,

Thanks for the information ... just to understand it, however, why is this so?

[Rodne Gold]

I think the utility of this depends on how your air assist is directed and how the evacuation system works , what I have found is a total godsend on my machines is the "engrave from the centre" option.
IE I can start my engraving from the centre of it. Very handy for positioning as the centre of most things can be found VERY easily as can the centre of an engraving area. Apart from that , it also misses lips of bowls etc , you start from the center of the bowl and end back there.

[Peter Meacham]

Are Trotec users aware of how we can do bottoms up engraving - I remember Mike Null remarked once to me that it can be done, but I did not ask for details at the time. If it is software driven, and I guess it must be, I have older operating software on my machine - so I may not be able to operate in that mode.

[Helen Cast]

Does anyone know if the Accuris Powersharp 16 has the ability to "engrave from center" or perhaps a work around to accomplish this start mode? Thanks in advance.

Helen/Cliff

[Roy Brewer]

... just to understand it, however, why is this so?Gregg,
We really have jumped all around the explanation, haven't we?
Rodney's post gave the best clue:
... depends on how your air assist is directed and how the evacuation system works Here's the deal: especially on the dark over white plastics, the vaporized "dark" is dragged/blown right into the still sticky "light" and condenses. This often requires a 2nd pass or manual labor to remove. This assumes that the vaporized laminate is pulled/blown toward the back.

In the same exhaust/air assist scenario, Bottom/Up engraving cleans up any condensed residue *before* it vaporizes the laminate. Hence the engraving should be pretty close to spotless.

Rubber stamps is really the reason Xenetech (1st with bottom/up engraving) created this option. Visualize engraving from the top down leaving "peaks" over which the flames traveled. The bottom edges of the letters were damaged since the flames tended to scource that which they flowed around. Bottom/up however, the flames are distributed evenly over each raster since.

To repond to another question, I'm am not aware of any situation where top/down is an advantage. Hence, I've recently started setting this feature as default on any system with that capability.

To respond to another question, yes, the Zing has that capability.

To respond to another question, sorry, the older Legend does not have this capability.

[Mike Null]

Peter

If you have the Expert version of the software you have the options of 1. bottom up engraving; 2. center out; and 3. raster in the y axis.

The illustration shows the bottom up option.

[Michael Kowalczyk]

Are Trotec users aware of how we can do bottoms up engraving - I remember Mike Null remarked once to me that it can be done, but I did not ask for details at the time. If it is software driven, and I guess it must be, I have older operating software on my machine - so I may not be able to operate in that mode.

Peter,
Get on the phone to Trotec and get your job Control updated and any firmware also. Hopefully you have the expert version so that the options are available to you.