Trotec, trying to Cut - Engrave - Cut

[Bob Davis - Sturgis SD]

I guess maybe this is not possible. It always engraves first, then cuts, I want to cut, then engrave, then cut some more. Guess I will go to Plan B.

[Mike Null]

Bob

See if this helps. https://www.troteclaser.com/en/news/...ftware-update/

[Bob Davis - Sturgis SD]

Thanks Mike, I will investigate updating the firmware.

[Kev Williams]

None of my lasers will cut first then engrave, always the other way around. I believe the thinking is, if you're thru-cutting, the piece you cut can fall and/or move, and will be out of position for the engraving pass... Pretty much the same as inside-out vector sorting, like cutting out an "0"-

The only time I 'cut' before engraving is to run half-thru 'snap' passes in laminates before engraving, as it's easier to do before than after.

With what you're doing, it's still only a 2-step procedure; run the first cut pass, then the engrave-2nd cut cut pass can be done in one shot--

[Jiten Patel]

Set up two settings - one for your first cut with no engraving settings, then another for engrave then cut. Set the colours so that the first setting is using one colour, then the second setting is using a different colour for the cut. This way, you can set up the job once with the correct colours and just run the job with the first setting, once it is done flick over to the second setting and run again. Same production time (apart from the small break in-between to switch settings).

[Steven Yates]

My RedSail X700 will engrave and cut in any order. The AutoLaser software lets you provide different cut and carve (raster engrave) settings to 256 different colors and run those colors in any order you choose.

If you set a particular color to both cut and carve, you can still pick which of those operations happens first.

I agree that carve before cut makes sense most of the time, but it's nice to be able to do something out of the ordinary when you need to.

[Kev Williams]

My Triumph 'appears' to have that option, as I can stack all the cutting layers before the raster layers, but it will never cut before engraving regardless of the layer order. But that's MY software, which seems to be pretty unique to Triumph (Lasersoft PHCad is the software)

[Bert Kemp]

My Rabbit will cut or engrave in any order I choose

[Bob Davis - Sturgis SD]

Well, I was trying to bend some acrylic like you see on those acrylic origami videos on YouTube. So to get the job done I built a jig (5 minutes) and used a heat gun. Not nearly as much fun as using the laser to cut - bend - cut, but I have a habit of trying to make things more complicated than they need to be.

[Chuck Thomas]

I've been able to do this with our SP400. At least I think I have. I won't be able to confirm until Wednesday though. Using the same colors job control uses, and in the exact order I want thing to happen, I create a custom material. Example, Black = cut, red = engrave, blue = cut. Then in the print properties dialog choose that custom material, then under "Halftone" choose color. I've done this also when wanting to cut the same wood using different power/speed to get a certain effect.

[Bob Davis - Sturgis SD]

I've been able to do this with our SP400. At least I think I have. I won't be able to confirm until Wednesday though. Using the same colors job control uses, and in the exact order I want thing to happen, I create a custom material. Example, Black = cut, red = engrave, blue = cut. Then in the print properties dialog choose that custom material, then under "Halftone" choose color. I've done this also when wanting to cut the same wood using different power/speed to get a certain effect.

Interesting. You might have more recent firmware than I do. Mine always engraves first, then cuts, no matter the layer order on the artwork, no matter the order of colors in Job Control.

[Kev Williams]

I've been making some position test runs on the Triumph, some are vector lines, some are words, so for fun I used 3 cut and 2 engrave layers, and the layer orders were cut-cut-engrave-cut-engrave....

what the machine did, was the two ENGRAVE's, in order, and then the 3 CUTs, in order. So just as reference, my machine refuses to cut before engraving...

[Chuck Thomas]

I will try to confirm on Wednesday. After reading about others results I can't be so sure I'm not just imagining everything.

[Scott Shepherd]

It will NOT cut and then engrave, no matter what order you have them in. Just because you can put them in the order you want, doesn't mean it's going to actually do it in that order. Kev is right, if you have it set to cut then engrave in the colors, it's going to engrave first and then cut. You can rearrange the colors all you want, it's not going to change it. This question was brought up on FB a couple weeks ago and I thought the colors mattered as well. Then someone said Trotec said it wouldn't cut and then engrave. I thought that was crazy talk because I've moved colors around all the time. Then I tried it. Nope, not happening. I suspect that's what happens on all lasers. Just because you can move the colors on the screen, doesn't mean it works in real life. Unless you actually try it, you might not be aware of what it really does.

You CANNOT do it on a Trotec at this point. I suspect there's a good reason for it but I don't know the reason.

[Kev Williams]

The reason for not cutting first before engraving is because when ANY cutting is involved, you must sort your work so that it completes from the inside-out. The perimeter of whatever you're cutting MUST be the last work done, otherwise, on pin or knife tables especially, once cut the piece will likely fall, and even on flat tables the piece can move out of position... once a piece falls it's 'done', you can't do any more work to it, and out of position pieces means any further work won't be correct. If cutting lightweight items, your air assist can blow them out of whack...

So it seems likely that these machines are designed not to cut first as a failsafe