Darkly Labs emblaser - affordable laser cutter - review

[JCL]

Hi @monkeysarefun, on the Darkly Labs forum (and I think, here) you showed us how you carved some panels in wood using your Emblaser and Laserweb. Have you tried this with Lightburn, and if you did, can you let me know how you got on?

[Simond]

I can’t comment on the Emblaser, but Lightburn is my go-to with my K40 CO2.

 

atb

Simon

[Greengiant]

Lightburn on the Emblaser is leagues ahead of Laserweb. 
 

Martin

[JCL]

Thanks everyone, I think I could have explained it better. I do use Lightburn myself (I move directly from Vetrics Cut-2D and find it’s brilliant), but I was wondering more about the carving side of things. Here’s the post I was looking at, monkeysarefun was using a laser web for his tests and I was wondering if he has tried in Lightburn.

 

 

Edited December 15, 2019 by JCL

[Darkly Labs]

LightBurn is excellent for these 'depth engravings' or carving.

 

They have just added a bunch of image manipulation properties that let you tweak your image to get better depth results. Select the image, right-click, and pick 'Show Properties'.

 

I just ran a rough test and attached some photos below.

[monkeysarefun]

4 hours ago, JCL said:

Thanks everyone, I think I could have explained it better. I do use Lightburn myself (I move directly from Vetrics Cut-2D and find it’s brilliant), but I was wondering more about the carving side of things. Here’s the post I was looking at, monkeysarefun was using a laser web for his tests and I was wondering if he has tried in Lightburn.

 

 

 

 I didn't try it using  Lightburn. I got as far as installing Lightburn  but I've been distracted for the last 12 months or so with 3D printing so the laser cutter hasn't had much use lately, hoping to get it out again over the Christmas break unless I'm on fire like the rest of NSW.

 

I imagine it would be much easier to do the 3D style carving using Lightburn  though than when I used the previous software (I forget what its called, sorry - that opensource programme.... you know what I mean!)

Edited December 16, 2019 by monkeysarefun

[JCL]

Thank you. In that case, I’ll give it a go and report back.

[JCL]

I've not had a chance to work on the 'carving', but a change in plans means I have been able to have a go at cutting on slate - and it's really easy and satisfying. I used 5mm/sec, 90% and 1 pass. The slate below took about 8 hours, but I worked out a lot of this was inefficiency of the program - the laser goes from the left hand side of the first letter to the right hand side of the last letter, and when you get to, say, the top of the letters in 'Cutting' it traverses between the left of the C to the right of the dot on the i. By splitting this up, there is much less traversal. To get over this, I split the word garden into 'Gar' and 'den', which saved me about an hour.

 

One more thing, I knocked the machine at one point and the slate moved without me realising it. Some sandpaper on the 'den' erased the mistake, and I'm assuming that once I've varnished it the smooth area will disappear (although it's already much less noticeable in real life).

 

Anyway, I'm really pleased with it, as will my wife be in a couple of days when she opens it. I know I'm ok putting this up as there's no chance she'll see it.

 

Merry Christmas.

 

[Greengiant]

It is game over with my Emblaser 2 at the moment, I had been cutting through 2mm MDF in three passes, then after a while it began to struggle and even six was only just getting through, so time for a clean up before cutting the final piece. Took the lens out to find it has burnt in the middle!

 

 

Mine is a version 1 E2 with the two part lens and it looks like the adhesive in between the two lenses has burnt, so now scrap. Ordered a one piece Quartz lens from Darkley along with the V2 assembly which should make lens cleaning a whole lot easier and less fiddly. Once it arrives it will be interesting to see if there is any performance improvement with the new lens.

 

Martin

[Giles]

Very interesting!

(I confess my E2 has still never been powered up!) 

 

Commiserations though!

Edited February 14, 2020 by Giles

[Greengiant]

My new lens and unit arrived today.

 

 

Before I installed it thought it best to give it a clean!

 

 

Unscrewed the fan and found these airbrush cleaning brushes useful.

 

 

The extractor fan looked in a bit of a mess.

 

 

Surprising what came out of that.

 

 

I then fitted the new lens and ran the focus wizard. Wow what a difference.

Previously I was needing 3 passes with air to cut through 2mm MDF, sometimes needing a fourth to be sure. Now only needs two passes with no air, in fact it looked like one pass was doing it. So did a couple of test shapes after on one pass and it very nearly cut right through, but it was enough so I could still push the shapes out. May well try a one pass again with air, or drop the speed to 2.5mm/sec and see what happens.

At the moment very pleased.

 

Photo of the underside showing the result of one pass.

 

Martin

[Giles]

That looks quite spectacular performance! May I ask how much the new lense assembly costs?

 

The dust in the laser fan does show that the extraction is not capable of moving the air sufficiently well (for a few possible reasons...)

[Greengiant]

1 hour ago, Giles said:

That looks quite spectacular performance! May I ask how much the new lense assembly costs?

 

The dust in the laser fan does show that the extraction is not capable of moving the air sufficiently well (for a few possible reasons...)

Giles,

Lens, prism assembly and shipping = £159.63

VAT, duty and DHL fee = £58.08

Total = £217.71

 

I have a lot of cutting to do today, so will be a good test.

Will look into converting to a bigger extractor fan at some point.

 

Martin

[monkeysarefun]

On 18/02/2020 at 20:43, Greengiant said:

Giles,

Lens, prism assembly and shipping = £159.63

VAT, duty and DHL fee = £58.08

Total = £217.71

 

I have a lot of cutting to do today, so will be a good test.

Will look into converting to a bigger extractor fan at some point.

 

Martin

Hmmm, might have to get on of those. Been sidetracked by the Photon 3D printer for the last year or so  but I'd like to get the Emblaser2  out from under the pile of stuff and fire it up again!

[Greengiant]

So far very pleased with the new lens, generally getting through in just two passes, although I have found out that not all 2mm MDF is indeed 2mm, some is as thick as 2.4mm!

Lens cleaning is so much easier and faster and really no need to check focus afterwards, although I have been and it has not budged.

I have been using up some of the scrap bits and using the inbuilt camera to help aligning of some of the odd shaped bits and cut some 7mm industrial windows...

 

 

...and some 16mm scale large industrial windows for a potential new project.

 

 

Martin

 

 

Edited February 29, 2020 by Greengiant

[PatB]

This thread has been dormant for a few months now, so I thought I might wake it up again. I received my Emblaser Core a couple of weeks ago. It's primarily intended for cutting patterns and stencils for my pottery business, but I'm also intending to use it for assorted modelling tasks. 

 

I was pretty pleased with how it all went together. Belt tensioning was a bit of a fiddle, but a couple of goes, and a very promptly addressed query to Darkly Labs support, got it sorted in the end. 

 

I've been having a play as opportunity arises, mostly doing test sheets of various paper and card to get a feel for speed and power settings. MDF, ply and anything likely to be fumey will need to wait until I've got an extractor rigged. I've a cheap bilge-blower fan on the way which, in conjunction with an Ebay PWM controller and some hardware store ducting, should see that sorted. 

 

However, there's a finite number of test sheets you can do before boredom sets in, so, the other day, I downloaded Qcad and drew up a small, narrow gauge coach (based on/inspired by a diminutive Welsh Highland vehicle) and cut this very rough mock up out of cereal packet card. 

The model is 1:35 scale and represents about a (short) day of drawing, from a standing start with Qcad, and not having used any CAD for a decade or more. Cutting the kit took about 15 minutes, and assembly was a 1 hour lash up, just to get an overall impression.

 

I'm chuffed to bits with it. Back in nthe 1970s, as a hamfisted kid reading David Jenkinson's articles on panelled coach construction, it never occurred to me that I might, one day, be able to do anything like that, and yet there it is on my desk.

 

Lessons learned/points for action

 

1. For some reason, the Emblaser isn't quite fully cutting the closed shapes. A tiny tag is left where the cut starts/stops. Not too much of a problem with bigger parts, but annoying with the rather fragile panelling overlays, and it shouldn't be doing that. I gather there should be a means, in Lightburn, of specifying a small overcut to eliminate this, but I haven't found it yet.

 

2. When I come to build this for real it'll be worth springing for decent card, or, at least, being selective in which cereal packets I use. During testing, I've found that cereal packet material varies from not actually too bad to something that resembles compressed dryer lint, even between packets from the same brand and variety. This mock up was from some in about the middle of that range.

 

3. Thin superglue makes a pretty decent card adhesive and allows fast assembly.

 

4. Given a removal of the necessity to muck about for days with a scalpel and steel rule, scratchbuilding is fun and enormously satisfying.

 

Next project, a brake 3rd to match.

Edited August 19, 2020 by PatB

[Ralphrob48]

Hi Pat,

 

That looks very nice. As an Emblaser 2 user for a couple of years now I have had a lot of experience using this machine and if you look on this thread here I have posted some more information about the materials and techniques I use with mine which you might find useful. 

 

 

Cereal packet cardboard, whilst useful for checking things out, is far too much of a poor quality to be of much use, it is worth getting some decent card from a hobbyshop but make sure it is not white! Read the thread for more information.

 

I have also posted on the Darkly Labs forums in the past, look for threads about 1 year with an Emblaser for a railway modeller. 

 

You can achieve amazing results with an Emblaser and card and shellac or sanding sealer. My thread on the Scalefour forum https://www.scalefour.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=5848&start=100shows the sort of things you can achieve using your machine and card in many layers. MDF is difficult to cut and I never use it unless there is no alternative, get some decent card and you will produce excellent models.

 

Ralph

[Simond]

It may be that MDF cuts much better with a CO2 laser than with a diode one, but I have used lots of the stuff, and many if not most of the various suppliers also use it, so it can't be all bad. 

MDF does produce horrid fumes that will condense on everything and are a b...r to clean off, so something clean like card is much better in that respect.

 

I have not tried card thick enough to allow me to engrave brickwork, but I guess, mount board should work.

 

The coach is great.  Nice one!  It is satisfying, isn't it!

 

ATB

Simon

Edited August 19, 2020 by Simond

[justin1985]

2 hours ago, Ralphrob48 said:

 

You can achieve amazing results with an Emblaser and card and shellac or sanding sealer. My thread on the Scalefour forum https://www.scalefour.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=5848&start=100shows the sort of things you can achieve using your machine and card in many layers. MDF is difficult to cut and I never use it unless there is no alternative, get some decent card and you will produce excellent models.

 

Ralph

 

How do you go about using the shellac with lasered card? Before or after lasering? I did have a skim through your P4 thread, but couldn't see it mentioned.

 

When I first bought some laser cut card kits a few years ago I did experiment with using "Button polish" (which seemed to be the only variety of shellac I could find) to seal before gluing, but it didn't seem to make a great deal of difference. However now I'm getting a bit more adventurous with combining layers in buildings I'm laser cutting myself, and hitting some problems with warping, I wonder if I should look again at this kind of thing?

[Ralphrob48]

Simon, CO lasers are far more suited to MDF, they have the power to cut in a single pass. 

 

Justin, I apply shellac after cutting. It is available in many names, shellac varnish, button polish and sanding sealer. I get mine from Ebay and usually get 1 litre for around £15 or so and it lasts forever. Lamination will cause warping which is why I use a framework and glue to that using strong clamps for the glue to dry. Gorilla glue is the preferred adhesive for that and it removes the warp perfectly.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Ralph

[PatB]

Thanks everyone. 

 

Just to update, I found (I think; I haven't done a test cut yet) the issue with the annoying tags. When looking to see how to get Lightburn to do a slight overcut I switched out of beginner mode and found a whole swathe of settings that included the ability to specify an overcut, but also had a setting for including tags for holding cutouts in the parent sheet. Guess what? The default setting is a single 0.25mm tag. I've now cleared that, so we'll see what the next test cut looks like. Interesting move on the part of Lightburn, setting a default that makes it look as if something's not quite right and then hiding the means of correcting it from the novice. Ah well. 

 

Anyhow, as RMWeb was down for the afternoon, I spent my time productively by adding some tab and slot location to the coach kit components, which should help my old eyes with lining stuff up for assembly. The next build might almost end up useable. 

[flubrush]

35 minutes ago, PatB said:

 The default setting is a single 0.25mm tag. I've now cleared that, so we'll see what the next test cut looks like. Interesting move on the part of Lightburn, setting a default that makes it look as if something's not quite right and then hiding the means of correcting it from the novice. Ah well.

 

I work with an Emblaser 1 and use Cut2D to produce files for it,  so I have never used Lightburn.   But I have had some occasions when a short tab on parts would have been a help.  For instance,  if I'm cutting windows with glazing bars from card,  then the pieces of card cut out between glazing bars can be displaced by the downdraught from the fan in the head and can get in the way of the laser when cutting other parts.  When doing that kind of job,  I have to stand over the machine and look out for waste parts being displaced and try and get them out of the way using a small brush.   So you might find yourself swtiching that function back on. :-)

 

Jim.

[monkeysarefun]

Just a quick question, has anyone with an early model Emblaser 2 bought the upgraded lens or diode and if so was it worth the price? I've not used mine for a couple of years and I'd like to dust it off.

With this years tax refund I do have a little cash to spend on frivolous things so was wondering if I should go for the upgrade, or else just spend it on more resin for my Mars 3D printer...

Edited August 19, 2020 by monkeysarefun

[Greengiant]

3 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

Just a quick question, has anyone with an early model Emblaser 2 bought the upgraded lens or diode and if so was it worth the price? I've not used mine for a couple of years and I'd like to dust it off.

With this years tax refund I do have a little cash to spend on frivolous things so was wondering if I should go for the upgrade, or else just spend it on more resin for my Mars 3D printer...

Yes, I had to do the lens upgrade, my early one burnt out the middle of the lens. The new quartz lens is better, the lens mount is way better and makes cleaning the lens a very quick and simple procedure. You don’t take out the whole unit like you do on the early lens unit and no faffing around with the 3D printed lens ring remover.

Martin

[PatB]

7 hours ago, flubrush said:

 

I work with an Emblaser 1 and use Cut2D to produce files for it,  so I have never used Lightburn.   But I have had some occasions when a short tab on parts would have been a help.  For instance,  if I'm cutting windows with glazing bars from card,  then the pieces of card cut out between glazing bars can be displaced by the downdraught from the fan in the head and can get in the way of the laser when cutting other parts.  When doing that kind of job,  I have to stand over the machine and look out for waste parts being displaced and try and get them out of the way using a small brush.   So you might find yourself swtiching that function back on. :-)

 

Jim.

Oh, I'm not saying it wouldn't be useful at times, I just thought the default setting was less than helpful. It's sorted now, though, so I can't really complain. Otherwise I'm finding the software fairly easy and intuitive.