Optimize Route Lasercut 5.3

[Ed Bath]

I would like to shorten the time it takes to engrave a product by optimizing the engraving route.

The attached file shows the layout that I am engraving. Currently, the laser engraves the Star and "EXAMPLE" at the same time. Then it moves down to the Hexagon and "SAMPLE" and engraves them at the same time.

There is a lot of time spent moving the laser head between the Star and "EXAMPLE" and again when engraving the Hexagon and "SAMPLE".

It would be much faster if each object were engraved completely before moving on to the next one.

Can anyone help me accomplish this in Lasercut 5.3?

Thanks,

Ed

[Andrew Holloway]

Can you rotate the file (and material in the laser) by 90 degrees? This will mean that it will engrave all 3 shapes at once and then move on to all the text.
Otherwise, can you create 2 files, one with just the shapes and run that, then run a second file that just has the text?

[Kev Williams]

Change the colors-- as in, leave the symbols black, then group the text and color it blue. If you had say, a 3rd, 4th or 5th column of engraving with a large space between, make them different colors too, like red, green and yellow.

Be sure to make all the power and speed settings the same for each color.

Any objects of the same color that fall into the same vertical plane 'bounding box' will all raster at the same time. If there's long spaces between, that's just a lot of time rastering dead air..

Since the laser will only engrave one color at a time, then color your engraving by columns. In the example below, if you were engraving this text in Cermark, which can be slow, engraving by color will cut over 60% off the engraving time vs the text being all black...

[Bert Kemp]

I have the same problem when cutting, If I'm doing say a sign that has a whole bunch of little cut outs the laser will just jump randomly all over the place, it might cut in the upper left corner then go all the way down to the lower right and then back up again. Is there an easy way to make it cut more in order

[Dave Sheldrake]

Cut Order Bert, you can change it in the card options.

Inside to out / outside to in / top to bottom / bottom yo top / by colour / by layer etc etc

machine options / work mode / cut

cheers

Dave

[Kev Williams]

Bert, I have the same problem with my Triumph. I purposely sort what I want to cut but the engraver software ignores it. I believe the reason it does this is to prevent over-burn. Like, I vector engrave thick outlines on large stainless panels because it's faster than rastering or separating the left & right sections into different colors. When I make the vector lines, all the starting points are right next to each other, so when one line is done, it should simply slide over .003" and start the next one, which would basically run the outline in one pass. But the Triumph does one line, then moves to the diagonal corner for the next outline. This WILL prevent an overburn at all those start & stop points, but that's a non issue with what I'm doing...

There may be a way to change this in your software, and I got new software for mine the other day and I'm hoping it will let me choose the cut order some way. Just need to find time to play with it

[Bert Kemp]

I don't see that option where is it located. I see were I can change the cut order but in order to do that I'd have to go in and change every little hole to a different color then try to figure out which ones to do 1st 2nd 3rd ect. Way to much trouble to do that.
The other big problem I'm having is lasercut seems to add stuff to my projects when I import it into laser cut from corel.example would be I have 1 cut color and 1 engrave color when I import it it shows some line colors have changed and area get engraved that I don't want engraved. I haven't a clue.

Cut Order Bert, you can change it in the card options.

Inside to out / outside to in / top to bottom / bottom yo top / by colour / by layer etc etc

machine options / work mode / cut

cheers

Dave

[Dave Sheldrake]

Lasercut only has 36 colours Bert, they have to be the "Web ready" colours or LaserCUT will change them to the nearest it recognises.

cheers

Dave

[Ed Bath]

Thanks Kev,

Changing the colors has significantly reduced my cycle times! And my files are now a lot prettier to look at ...

Ed

[Bert Kemp]

ok that makes sense I guess

Lasercut only has 36 colours Bert, they have to be the "Web ready" colours or LaserCUT will change them to the nearest it recognises.

cheers

Dave