Questions from the newest of newbies

[Anthony Penchetta]

I have been lurking at the laser thread for awhile. My Epilog MIni 24 came in last Friday. Not sure how it made it to my door step since the mailing lable on the box had someone elses name on it in SLovokia :D

I have some jobs slated to be done, (like by tonight) but can't reach my rep or Epilog, so a little help is appreciated.

1. WHen I set a new home position for center-center engraving, when I hit GO, it takes off somewhere else and starts.

2. I keep getting "Position Errors?

3. When I start a job and I know it is not going wrong, I hot stop, can you cancel the job from the control panel?

Thanks in advance for the responses,

Oh, I'm sure most of you know what a Mini 24 looks like, but mine has a batch of Penchetta shaving brushes on top fresh out of my shop trying to get engraved :eek:

[David Fairfield]

what is center - center engraving? Must be something new?

-Dave

[Jim Watkins]

Anthony,
I have the very same unit and I will try to help, though it might not be much.
1. When you set it to center-center, it positions itself in the center of the drawing and when you send the drawing to the laser, it does not burn from the center out, it goes back to the pieces top left position and starts from there.
2. Not sure why your getting that error. I have not experienced it.
3. You can stop the job in the middle by hitting the "Stop" button one time and it will stop at the end of the line being worked. You can cancel the job by hitting the reset button and it will stop and reset to it's home position.

I don't know if that was helpful but I tried. :)

[Stephen Beckham]

Anthony,

The position error comes from having a file too large for the center of the location. Remember it will divide your height by two - go up that high then start engraving.

If you are doing a 4X4 block, but have you home set at say 1",1" - the system would try to go up two full inches before starting the etching. It would hit zero before going up high enough.


On the other issue, the system moves way down the deck when the center-center check block is not set. It will go to the location that corel says it needs to go to.

Basic steps for use:

1. X/Y off - Go
2. Move mirror head to desired location -center of substrate
3. Set Home
4. Make sure Center-Center is selected on print driver - print.
5. Run it with lid open to verify location.

Tip - I always draw a square or circle around my text. Then run the system in vector mode. It will draw that same outline on the target. But be careful - if the text is not centered in the square, when you switch back to vector, it could move your target again while in center-center mode. I fix this by having my default printer settings for vector mode at 30 speed - 0 power for everything. Then when I like the location of my alignment, I print in combo mode to make sure the square is still part of the print job. One the raster is done, I just stop the vector mode and reset it.

Why zero vector power you may ask? I've been across the room one to many times when the raster finished and had a nice little square added to the target!!! :eek: This way I don't have to change the power in vector mode before it destroys something accidentally... I have to change it to actually get it to work - set the default to least destructive...

Steve

[Anthony Penchetta]

Thanks, I new the cancel job was easy fix, just could not find it anywhere in the book.

I have the postion error gone, but I still can not get it centered. After I postition the new home, When I hit go, it appears to be moving to where the graphic is positioned on the page in corel and starts from that point.

Thanks for the replys

[Anthony Penchetta]

Okay, when I hit stop and then reset after I see it wondered off again to some other place than my center. The laser head returns to home where I originally had it centered to begin with.


Steve, it must have something to do with the file size, not sure why, I tried something smaller and it worked.
I was only engravinging a 4x1 logo. so not sure why it was wandering with that.

[John Noell]

The only times I have had it wander off like that when set to center-center (a WONDERFUL feature for certain types of jobs I have discovered) is when there was a stray graphic or letter it also wanted to cut or engrave. I find it very annoying that Corel is happy to print things that are not visible. (At least X3 warns you, if you are paying attention the "issues" tab when you say print.)

[Marc Myer]

Pardon if I'm restating the obvious, but after positioning the head to the new location, are you making sure you hit the 'set home' key?

[Anthony Penchetta]

Pardon if I'm restating the obvious, but after positioning the head to the new location, are you making sure you hit the 'set home' key?

Absolutely. I have the friggin manual out and going step by step on setting the new home position.

I thought about the stray graphic as well. I went and opened a new page.
The only thing I was trying to engrave was a 1x4 text.

I got fed up last night after numerous attempts for something that seamed should be so easy.

Thanks for the responses

[Peck Sidara]

Anthony,

As Stephen has suggested, if your new home position is close to the top, left or right ruler bar and your artwork is too large and "makes" the engraving head go beyond the maximum engraving area, you will get a position error.

If you're artwork contains more than one image OR if you have multiple images, have one selected but didn't print "selected objects only", it will take into account everything that is on the Corel page and try to center that around your new home position.

Tech supports been open for a few hours now, I'd recommend calling them at 303.215.9171 if you'd like to have someone walk you thru the process.

I'm certain it's something simple and part of the learning process. Play around with the machine and take some notes, jot down some questions so when Innovative Cutting Systems comes out for the install/training, all of your inquires can get answered then.

[Anthony Penchetta]

Thanks all for the help, it seemed to be a sequencing error.
I needed to set my center first-then go through the print screen,
then go to the job. I thought I was doing it every which way to make
it work. Got pass engravinging 101 :D

Did I mention I HATE learning curves. :mad: I could be in the shop making sawdust and would have been happy :o

[Frank Corker]

Hi Tony I have only just read this and I am only re-enforcing what you have just said. The sequence is the only thing that you had wrong. Set the home position THEN print. That was all you were doing wrong.

I have to say for all of the improvements made to the Epilog updates, the centre centre is the best thing they have ever done. (I just wish they didn't use center - we don't have it in the English dictionary).

[David Fairfield]

can somebody explain what is center center and why its an advantage?

[Frank Corker]

David, centre centre is available on Helix and Mini Epilogs. The XY home is disabled. Then you put the red dot pointer into the centre of a your workpiece and reset the home position. The printer driver then allows your graphic to be engraved regardless of where it lies on Corel page. with the centre of the corel grapic to where the red dot position is set on your workpiece.


A little difficult to expain, but the benefits are that when you try to line up your workpiece in the normal manner it will usually take two or three goes or even more before it will engrave at the right place. With this it's a bit of a no brainer. There is more than one setting as well, there is
1) centre/centre
2) centre/left
3) top centre.


Easier for you to just have a look from the manual - http://www.epilogfiles.com/mini_helix_manual.pdf

PAGE 91


"The Center Engraving Option allows you to define the center of your artwork as
the primary reference point (Home position) of your engraving or cutting. The
Center Engraving Option has been designed to be used in conjunction with the Set
Home feature of the laser. This differs from standard printing where the upper
left corner of the page and the upper left corner of the laser table define your
primary reference point. There are three options for centering your artwork:"