Darkly Labs emblaser - affordable laser cutter - review

[BrushType4]

You could always try mount board that picture framers use. 1mm thickness cuts very well though care must be taken when painting. 

[Giles]

I'm having a slightly frustrating time at the moment - trying to get a building done for Denton Brook, but the same thing is happening again, after 30mins cutting, the registration goes, trashing the job ( you can see on the left beside the doorway, and at the bottom)

 

My instinct is that it's software, as opposed to simply 'losing' registration..... This of course happened with the small shed until I did the job in two halves.

 

This was 45 minutes of cutting.

 

Edited March 20, 2016 by Giles

[Stubby47]

Those look like areas when the rendering hasn't fallen off - a thin layer of filler and you've got a poorly looked after building.

 

Not helpful if it's a station, but maybe means the pieces can be used somewhere.

[BrushType4]

Giles,

 

I don't think its the software. Apart from the cutting method, you really have a inexpensive CNC machine. Brickwork is quite intensive and soon runs in thousands of moves so I hope you haven't found the limitation of the machine. 

 

Assuming you've checked the work isn't moving, are the belts tight enough? Is the bed perfectly level? Is the gantry fully tightened up and not flexing?

[raymw]

Hi Giles,

 

I've not got one of these lasers, so can't be too specific, but when you rerun the job, do you get the identical faults? I'm not sure if you are running the machine from a pc (serial/usb interface) or from inbuilt memory or sd card, say. If the fault is repeatable, then it would most likely be connected with the transfer of the program, poor usb connection or similar (may be mechanical-poor contacts- or electrical - too much current draw on usb - or software taking a momentary holiday.) when sending from pc to sd card/machine memory. If it is not repeatable, then I would think it is hardware related, bad connection, processor/memory running hot/whatever, within the laser machine itself. Does the head follow the paths, but laser is off, or does the movement skip the paths?

 

Best wishes,

 

Ray

[BG John]

My Silhouette Portrait wouldn't work properly when connected to my unpowered USB hub, but it's fine when I plug in the power supply. I've read that other people have problems with USB hubs. I haven't made it work anywhere near as hard as your laser is working, so it may be worth investigating.

[monkeysarefun]

Just been out to our local Hobbycraft store for something else and noticed 1/16th Basswood in useable sizes ( about 3" x 24") which could be useful, as a US outfit the suppliers might have a presence in Australia.

 

http://www.hobbylinc.com/midwest-hobby-and-craft-basswood-sheets-basswood-strips

 

It was while I was looking at the sheets of timber that I realised I must have had my stupid head on this morning when I responded to your post about thickness required. 

 

Certainly for UK brickwork the thickness should be 1.5mm, not 1mm, so your supplies of material at 1.5mm should be fine? - a 'standard brick is in the region of 9" x 3" high (including mortar courses), and about 4" thick. This would make the 'end on' courses at the corners somewhere around 1.33mm to 1.5mm, so I would give either 1.5mm or 1/16" a try to see how it looks, you could always sand a tiny bit off the back of the material at the corner joints, but I don't think you would think anything about it if the half bricks on the corner were a scale 1/2" too wide.

 

Peter

 

Hi Peter, You are right - I've created brick patterns and tehbricks are 3mm by 1mm so with the power of maths half bricks are 1.5mm... I must stop drinking in the mornings. And further, I'd ordered several sheets of 1.5mm basswood ply from a local balsawood mongers that arrived on Friday! Thanks for pointing out my dumb mistake.

 

Giles,

 

I don't think its the software. Apart from the cutting method, you really have a inexpensive CNC machine. Brickwork is quite intensive and soon runs in thousands of moves so I hope you haven't found the limitation of the machine. 

 

Assuming you've checked the work isn't moving, are the belts tight enough? Is the bed perfectly level? Is the gantry fully tightened up and not flexing?

 

I did an A4 sheet of 4mm English bond bricks without issue and that had 21,589 individual elements in it so I don't think its a limit of the machine as such. Is there another export option, eg .pdf or .eps available that you can use to try to confirm where the issue originates? Also, when you hit the 'calculate' button in the software to create the cutting path, if you zoom in on the project do all the elements have little arrows on them? Maybe there is an issue between the drawing package and the cutting one that is causing elements to be ignored?

 

If anything I occasionally have the opposite problem and get extra things that I didn't ask for such as square outlines around circles, I have to check over the screen display quite thoroughly to see if its snuck things like that in before I hit the go button.

 

Maybe to further narrow it down you could try the picsender software that is also spruiked on he darklylabs site. Its only a trial version unless you pay so you'll probably get watermarks or something on your job, but it might help to indicate where the problem occurs - with the original .dxf file, or the Vector2D app.

 

picsender will handle very large jobs since its purpose in life is to stream gcode for engraved photos and 3D engraved projects that take several hours to laser.

 

 

AS a last resort, you can post it up in the darklylabs forum, they are responsive to issues there.

Edited March 20, 2016 by monkeysarefun

[teetrix]

Hi Giles,

 

I've found this at the darkly labs forum:

http://forum.darklylabs.com/index.php?p=/discussion/150/stops-cutting-without-error

 

Btw I would contact the support anyway...

 

Michael

Edited March 20, 2016 by teetrix

[Giles]

Thank you all - I have contacted Support (last night) and had a reply from Domenic, who has suggested installing Ultimate GCode Sender, and tweaking a couple of settings on that, which will slow the carriage a bit between vectors, and smooth out acceleration a little.

[Trofimow]

It seems that mine is on its way from Oz.

 

DHL have just relieved me of 168 quid for VAT.

 

 

Alan

[Giles]

Excellent - I don't think you'll regret it!

[Giles]

I spent most of the afternoon looking for some windows I bought from York laser, to go into one of the Denton Brook buildings. When, after a couple of hours I found them, I realised I had bought some modern UPVC Windows by mistake!! No use at all.... I therefore drew up something more suitable, to try and cut them in 0.8mm ply (a material I haven't to date tried.....)

 

I confess I didn't bother doing test pieces, I just went straight for it. Etch cuts were 20mm/sec at 75%, Single pass, And the Cuts were 10mm/sec at 100%, with three passes - but would have been better at four passes, as some of the frames were just clinging on.....

 

The glazing bars are about 0.5mm wide, and have come out beautifully! The quality is stunning.

 

I wouldn't do piles of them a once, as being a silly computer, it does half a job, goes off and does something else and then comes back to it, and of course it will always do a better job if it finishes one thing first....... One could do a work-around by doing pairs of Windows on different layers, so it will do them a pair at a time.

 

 

 

Edited March 26, 2016 by Giles

[Giles]

Edited March 26, 2016 by Giles

[nick_bastable]

I found 3 passes at 100% 7mm cut 0.8mm ply nicely

 

 

the water-tower base came up very nice, I have since reworked the platform in 0.8mm ply, next to try some wagon bodies

 

Nick

[ngtrains.com]

 

I wouldn't do piles of them a once, as being a silly computer, it does half a job, goes off and does something else and then comes back to it, and of course it will always do a better job if it finishes one thing first

 

I wonder.......

 

Is this because you've draw your, say, squares as four lines?  When I was working at York Modellmaking IIRC I was taught to merge, group or combine , or whatever the term was in CorelDraw, them into one line  (in proper CAD it would be make them into a polyline).  If you didn't the laser would dash about all over the place, apparently randomly, doing odd lines all over the place. It would eventually do all of them but wasted loads of time moving about pointlessly. With the shape as a single line it would complete the sqaure before going elsewhere.

 

Another thing I have randomly remembered from those days is don't get your speed too high on jobs with lots of sharp changes of direction or you'll get inconsistent cut depth with deeper cuts near the change of direction as the power will be the same but the speed will vary as the carriage has to slow for the change of direction and then accelerate again in the new direction. Might not make a big difference to your work but it did when we were being flash with the laser set to cut the material but not the backing paper with jobs with self adhesive backing.

 

Of course its a few years now since I last drove the laser cutters so those thoughts might be random rubbish

[Simond]

Giles

 

It's because it's Windows....

 

Simon

[monkeysarefun]

@Giles,

 

Did you fix the problem you were having with the registration shifting?

[monkeysarefun]

I've been playing around with Inkscape and converted my brick files so that the individual lines are now objects with a definable shape so the emblaser fills them in rather than just cuts a line.

 

That really does sound as clear as mud, but basically previously each ' mortar joint' was a line defined by 2 points. You can convert these lines using the 'Stroke to path' option under the Path menu to give an actual path with 4 corner points, ie a little rectangle

 

 

Do this to all the joints, then use the union option to join them all together and you get one big path:

 

 

that the emblaser software can treat like a raster file and fill in, which to my mind creates a more realistic result than straight vector lines:

 

 

I've been playing around with corners after seeing Giles' great work, I'm getting there in 4mm to the foot but I just didn't cut the slots quite deep enough so the ends of the bricks are recessed a little still, but I can fix that tomorrow -  I never dreamed I'd be able to create actual interlocking brick corners on 4mm to the foot models, so I'm happy.

 

 

 

 

Just  a close up, because I think they really do look kind of  like actual bricks.....

 

 

 

 

This is sprayed with Tamiya primer, and when the paint was dry pre-mixed polyfilla mixed with a dab of brick red acrylic  paint to tint it slightly to match the red oxide coloured mortar  that  the full size thing I'm basing it on uses, smeared on with a putty knife and then the excess wiped off. Now I just need to work out how to do the inside edge of the window!

 

I'm pretty pleased with this, especially since the material is an old 1.5mm thick  binder cover that I found in my cardboard archives, I don't think I really need to splash out on anything fancy given how well this went.  I DID go to a laser supply place in Riverwood, the receptionist I dealt with was adamant (Not the actual Adam Ant, obviously, I mean I asked her to sign my copy of 'Goody Two Shoes' but she just stared at me blankly..)) that the only lasererable plastic sheets they had was black on one side and white on the other. I told her I'd try one piece of .5mm A0 sized sheet , and fainted when she rang up the $75.00 price. Its currently on its own special chair in the lounge room, I'm still working up the courage to try out a little bit of it.

 

 

Oops, nearly forgot - the settings for the mortar lines in the Cutlaser2D programme were 100mm/sec, the 'fill' option was selected and .2mm offset, 45 degrees, cross-hatch was deselected. To cut it 6mm/sec at 100% power, it took three passes - they made those old binder covers tough!

Edited March 27, 2016 by monkeysarefun

[Jol Wilkinson]

I wonder.......

 

Is this because you've draw your, say, squares as four lines?  When I was working at York Modellmaking IIRC I was taught to merge, group or combine , or whatever the term was in CorelDraw, them into one line  (in proper CAD it would be make them into a polyline).  If you didn't the laser would dash about all over the place, apparently randomly, doing odd lines all over the place. It would eventually do all of them but wasted loads of time moving about pointlessly. With the shape as a single line it would complete the sqaure before going elsewhere.

 

Another thing I have randomly remembered from those days is don't get your speed too high on jobs with lots of sharp changes of direction or you'll get inconsistent cut depth with deeper cuts near the change of direction as the power will be the same but the speed will vary as the carriage has to slow for the change of direction and then accelerate again in the new direction. Might not make a big difference to your work but it did when we were being flash with the laser set to cut the material but not the backing paper with jobs with self adhesive backing.

 

Of course its a few years now since I last drove the laser cutters so those thoughts might be random rubbish

CorelDraw is a proper 2D CAD tool and provides the facility to easily draw and size various shapes in which all the components are automatically combined,

 

I find it easier to learn CorelDraw which is pretty intuitive if you have grasped the idea of drawing with pencil and paper. On the other hand I found programmes like TurboCad, much more difficult.

[Simond]

Chris

 

I'm not quite there yet (have a look at my lasering in my Porth Dinllaen thread) but I reckon you can put mortar courses in the window reveals too, provided they are only one brick deep, of course. Effectively, you need to jog the beam into the brickwork by a gnat's, and then back onto the line to cut the mortar line through the thickness of the material. This does mean drawing each joggle individually, of course.

 

I suspect that the multicoloured stuff you've bought is for doing engraved signs & panel labels. It does look the business when cut. I was given some small pieces with my laser, but haven't tried it yet.

 

Your colouring looks excellent - the Tamiya paint is presumably "brick red"? I started with Halfords' rattle can red oxide primer (car paint) and then over coated with acrylics, and then had a try of the "individual bricks" game, which is one for a dull night... I think the colour you have would be a better starting point, so any pointers welcome.

 

I'm trying to get 2.5 mm MDF to get the comb joints to work properly in 7mm, but I'm sure I'll not be buying sheets of brick plastic card any more!

 

Best

Simon

[monkeysarefun]

Chris

 

I'm not quite there yet (have a look at my lasering in my Porth Dinllaen thread) but I reckon you can put mortar courses in the window reveals too, provided they are only one brick deep, of course. Effectively, you need to jog the beam into the brickwork by a gnat's, and then back onto the line to cut the mortar line through the thickness of the material. This does mean drawing each joggle individually, of course.

 

I suspect that the multicoloured stuff you've bought is for doing engraved signs & panel labels. It does look the business when cut. I was given some small pieces with my laser, but haven't tried it yet.

 

Your colouring looks excellent - the Tamiya paint is presumably "brick red"? I started with Halfords' rattle can red oxide primer (car paint) and then over coated with acrylics, and then had a try of the "individual bricks" game, which is one for a dull night... I think the colour you have would be a better starting point, so any pointers welcome.

 

I'm trying to get 2.5 mm MDF to get the comb joints to work properly in 7mm, but I'm sure I'll not be buying sheets of brick plastic card any more!

 

Best

Simon

 

 

G'day and thanks Simon, I have been trying a few options to get an indented mortar line into the window reveal, and have had a few successes and failures -  its the colouring and mortaring process I need to work on I reckon. Its hard to aim the spray can into the little window, and my full size putty knife just causes mayhem! I didn't spend very much time on that part of the test, it was mainly the corner joint and the mortaring I was trying to nail, so I might get littler tools out tomorrow and try again.

 

The tamiya paint is just their Red Oxide primer. I chose that cos I had some handy already, by chance it seems to match the dark red bricks around here, but if I can find a similar colour spraycan in the local hardware I'll try that because it'll be cheaper.The final colour you're seeing in the pics is a litle muted by the remnants of the polyfilla that I wiped off, - it kind of tinged  the original colour a bit, but in a good way, which hardly ever happens.  I went the spray route because I was thinking brushing would fill up the fine mortar joints, bit I'll give that a go too. So many tests to do, one day I'll build an actual thing.

 

I really am impressed by laser cutting stuff. Because theres no physical contact with the material, theres no tearing or stress put on the work so you can cut amazingly fine details.  - That is once you get the settings right and you don't end up with a big ring of scorchedness...

 

Edited March 27, 2016 by monkeysarefun

[monkeysarefun]

CorelDraw is a proper 2D CAD tool and provides the facility to easily draw and size various shapes in which all the components are automatically combined,

 

I find it easier to learn CorelDraw which is pretty intuitive if you have grasped the idea of drawing with pencil and paper. On the other hand I found programmes like TurboCad, much more difficult.

 

 

I know exactly what you mean, my work bought a licensed copy of Coreldraw but never used it so I asked some random guy  if I could have it and them  having no  idea what it was,they said ' oh ok..."

 

Like you said, once you get aboard it is easy to use and up until I got into inkscape I did all my model ship frames with it and it did exactly what I needed,

 

Last week I downloaded a 15 day trial version of turbocad, thinking that if its got a turbo then its obviously better, but I opened it up, drew a rectangle and after that I didnt have a clue what to do next.

 

But saying all that, I''d still love to get the chance to learn Autocad and turbocad and so on, but I think I can get by enough with the free stuff so it would just be a learning extravagance,,, , but  it might impress the ladies!

Edited March 27, 2016 by monkeysarefun

[Simond]

TurboCad is a lightweight clone of AutoCad, and is a full function 2D & 3D cad system, I'm not familiar with coreldraw but I understand it's a drawing program, more aimed at diagrams and artwork, rather than a tool for making engineering drawings, which is where CAD comes from. You can prepare millimetre-perfect drawings of anything, and from there to Laser cutting or CNC milling is a relatively simple step.

 

If you can draw a rectangle, you're well on the way. Use the data boxes at the lower left to define how big your box should be. Say, a 50, b 20. Ensure you have the mouse pointer constraint turned on (top left icon in that toolbox if your version is the same as my ancient one). Click somewhere in your drawing frame and then click again somewhere else and your box will appear.

 

Now click on the parallel lines symbol in the same toolbox as your box symbol. Enter 10 in the "offset" box, and then choose the lines of your box, and click outside the box, you will produce a series of lines, parallel to the sides of the box. You can corner these using the corner command in the modify toolbox.

 

You should then try drawing circles and lines and intersecting them using the other "modify" commands - if you follow the key instructions in the manual, you can learn to draw almost anything in 2D.

 

I'm fairly handy in Creo 3D, but I do find Turbocad 3D rather difficult, but in 2D it's brilliant. Persevere, you'll get there!

 

Best

Simon

[teetrix]

I've found ViaCAD very intuitive and useful (much easier as turboCAD) , and it's available for Windows and Mac.

Although it is a powerful 3D-CAD I've only dabbled in 2D so far.

http://www.punchcad.com/p-27-viacad-2d3d-v9.aspx

You can download a test version and evaluate if it works on your computer and if you can work with it easy. I recommend the "2D/3D" version:

http://www.punchcad.com/trial.aspx

Prices are reasonable, and older versions are still available quite cheap.

 

Michael

Edited March 27, 2016 by teetrix

[JCL]

Hi Simon, I think you're right, Corel Draw has been going for decades, I remember using it back in the day, and I always saw it as the Corel Corp's competitor to Adobe Illustrator (that I'm attempting to learn for work).

 

A quick suggestion Chris, if the dovetail doesn't quite line up, you could try lightly sanding the corner from the back of the sheet - maybe smearing something on the back so that it doesn't fluff up.