Trotec Training

[Raphael Weil]

Raphael

I'm not sure I understand why you need to "trace" the perimeter nor do I understand why you use cancel. Is it something the pause button would do?

The machine can be set to return to start when you finish the job.

Hi Mike,

let's say you were trying to position an engraving on a given object. There's a function that just moves the red light pointer to follow the dimensions of your piece as a preparation before engraving. On the FSL it just does one orbit around the perimeter of your engraving. On the Trotec it just keeps spinning until you hit cancel.

[Mike Null]

I usually position my red dot to the center of the area then move the drawing to the red dot (laser).

[Raphael Weil]

I usually position my red dot to the center of the area then move the drawing to the red dot (laser).

Wow that's really interesting, I'd never contemplated doing it that way. Any reason why you wouldn't want to make use of one of the laser bed corners and start in say the top left corner for items that were squared off? I'm all for doing it a better way if there is one. Just trying to figure out if finding the exact middle of my items is a longer process than the way I do it now.

[Mike Null]

Raphael

There are several jobs I do where I have to load the item one at a time and I center the item under the red dot then push the repeat button. Last week i did 600 pan lids with cermark.

the other reason I do that is to use up a specific area of a plastic sheet. For example, there may be enough left to do 4 name tags or labels. I move the red dot to the area of the sheet that will accommodate the job then send the drawing to JC and move the drawing to the laser.

The upper left corner is my start point for much of my work including metal for plaques.

[Raphael Weil]

Raphael

There are several jobs I do where I have to load the item one at a time and I center the item under the red dot then push the repeat button. Last week i did 600 pan lids with cermark.

the other reason I do that is to use up a specific area of a plastic sheet. For example, there may be enough left to do 4 name tags or labels. I move the red dot to the area of the sheet that will accommodate the job then send the drawing to JC and move the drawing to the laser.

The upper left corner is my start point for much of my work including metal for plaques.

ah ok, so we basically do it the same way for a plaque style object (I engrave wooden frames). Since my wooden frames may not be 100% square (but close), I find that mode that runs the perimeter allows me to see if I need to nudge the frame by a 32nd of an inch or something so that my design winds up as close to center as possible.

[Mike Null]

Raphael

One of the tools I find useful is a draftsman's triangle. I have a 30-60-90 and 45-90. I buy them with as long a leg as possible for positioning items of questionable dimension and squareness. They're easy enough to make with your laser if you have some material.

[Mayo Pardo]

Raphael
I have the same problem with the job trace function, where it stops at some random point after you hit cancel.
Maybe it completes whatever got loaded into the memory buffer before cancel is hit? I haven't found a setting that will make it automatically return to where it started.
It's an extra step but what I do is select Move Laser, and then manually enter the coordinates that are shown in the X-Y location boxes to put the laser back where it started.

[Neville Stewart]

For repositioning after a trace, I add a "marker to laser" when I've centered or selected default, when I'm done outlining, I just stop and then select "move laser to marker" (the previously positioned marker) et voila!