monkeysarefun

G'day Allan, I admit that I have no experience of British weed tufts, but here are some tufts on an abandoned southern Sydney railway line (with obligatory spooky haunted tunnel) which proves your tufting skills are accurate - and universal! Maybe just add some tree ferns and a few brown snakes into the sunny bits and you could be an Australian Modeller (and you could probably knock up a model of most of our rail system before next Thursday!)

At the risk of you thinking my dad runs this company, which he doesn't. so I'm not just making this up, but I emailed darklylabs about my emblaser 1 issue, where the laser only goes to full power if I take the laser guard off and hold the button down. Domenic replied saying that it was a weird one but they are sending me a complete set of all the electronics, so I can swap them all out in turn until I find the faulty bit and then send back the others. All free of charge, which is amazing since I bought the EB1 in February 2016, so 17 months ago. Who else does that? Definitely not @#$*#@ Samsung , they'll happily let your house burn down! ( - my house didn't burn down but it took a lot of convincing to get them to admit a fault with their #$%$ washing machines before I got a replacement )

Well, thats a total Bu99er! How come the good guys come down with these things while the Donald Trumps and the people who make 'Family Bathrooms' seem to be bullet proof? Just want you to know that theres a whole heap of us Allan Downes groupiies who are hanging out for you!

That is good news Giles. .Similarly Darklylabs are continually refining the Z axis height that you need to enter into laserweb at the start of a job. It was originally the thickness of the material, but their latest iteration of the material database that you use with laserweb has that distance at half the material thickness. If that makes any sense. I think they are still learning, along with us and are getting more knowleadgable about the lasers beam shape and where its best focal point is. (And when I started railway modelling back in the 70's, with my humbrol knife and a metal ruler stolen from dads toolbox I never expected I'd be writing that sentence!)

G'day Graham, Yes its basically the result of a google search for 'cherub carvings', then choosing my favourite, importing that into gimp (ie photoshop for tight ar^^es), turning it to greyscale and then messing around with the brightness and contrast. Thats the bit that I've been working on. Phil sent my a hi-res picture of the pediment of a building he posted here - here is the result I posted on my emblaser laser cutter thread: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/108310-darkly-labs-emblaser-affordable-laser-cutter-review/page-33&do=findComment&comment=2785207 and I've been fine tuning it all from there. Re your question, anything is pretty much doable, I'm still experimenting but the fine details that are achievable at this early stage are impressive I reckon, I haven't yet scaled anything down to 2mm scale but if you have anything you want tried out I'm more than happy to give it a go, Your modelling is an inspiration. Cheers, Chris J

Cheeky cherubs! All those EB2 buyers, you really do need the air assist. If you haven't included it its not too late to get it, here the bottom K was done with air assist, the top one with it off (because my air pump died..) (The other lasered thing is meant to be 2 hearts - not a pair of bottoms.) And you need to clean the lens pretty well after an hour of laser cutting. But you get the free lens cleaning kit at least - eventually !

Phil was talking about me - as I said a couple of days ago I am amazed at how you can break these buildings down to simple layers - and reconstruct them so accurately so quickly. I am really enjoying your thread. As Phil said, I've been dabbling in 3D laser sculpting. I saw the cherubs on the pics Phil posted so I whipped this up - not sure how it would look in 2mm/ft. Thanks again for a brilliant thread.

And they are adding more free stuff, like the lens cleaner kit. That cost me $47 with shipping..

Hi Allan, How was the grey masonry effect on the building in the last three photos achieved?. The finish and the water stains look stupendous. Two thumbs up!

You MAY have done what I know I will do when I fit mine - put it in the wrong way.. The lens cleaning article for the Emblaser 2 shows the correct way up for its lens, I assume the EB1 would be the same: : Just a quick question Giles, how necessary is the focus ring thing - can the existing one be used? I haven't asked for a new one yet but its looking like I'll need to replace the little module that the microswitch fits on since my issue seems related to that so if they are sending me one of them, I'll get them to send a ring too.

At the risk of becoming boring, just another one. I dabble in model ship building and the carvings on the stern have always been very intimidating, but the Emblaser makes it embarrasingly easy - choose file on google search, import into Gimp to beef up the contrast a bit, send to laserweb, resize to suit and then hit the go button. ( Its still a bit damp from scrubbing off the soot.)

Mine had the issue before I even took the lens guard off... Additionally with the black guard off when I press the laser button the laser will not stay on unless I hold the button down. Its meant to stay on at 10% power. I'll have a fiddle with the cables and leads tomorrow before I put a service job in . I think its sulking because I have the emblaser 2.

Well thats disappointing! I have my laser lens , but I have an issue with my emblaser 1, it isn't cutting anything. The laser glows blue but it doesn't even leave a mark. I'm thinking it is set at the 10% power limitation that it is set to without the laser guard. Thats controlled by a micro switch but even jamming something into the gap between the laser guard and the microswitch doesn't fix it. I'll put in aservice call with darklyllabs on the weekend and they'll sort it. Got to say that it is refreshing to have the confidence in a company in that I know I can raise a problem and they will sort it out. I had an issue with my emblaser 2,last weekend I contacted them about it Saturday afternoon, Domenic (darklylabs CEO) replied 9am Sunday morning and I had the replacement part by Tuesday. Australia used to have a self supporting manufacturing industry until it all went to China. Its nice to have these niche companies popping up AND to experience their enlightened customer service

Very nice Giles, what is the frosting effect?

American Presidents: Is your model railroad lacking a scale model of an appropriately patriotic sculptured frieze? With the Emblaser you can have your own finely detailed HO scale May Day parade backdrop before you can say "Fake Newski"

You have an amazing ability to break complex surfaces down into individual layers, its really inspirational and I'm really enjoying your posts.

In return, I've been amazed at those sloping brick edges that you've been posting. Your buildings are brilliant.

G'day Giles, Theres no reason why the same can't be done on the Emblaser 1, you'd just need to download laserweb, work out the settings then save the gcode, and send to the Emblaser 1 using Universal Gcode Sender (available on darklylabs site). If anyone wants a more in-depth how-to, I'm happy to put one up here.

I thought THAT was a monger!

G'day Emblaserers! I noticed a photo of this building that Phil_sutters had posted in grahame's thread in the card structure modelling area: I'd love to build a model of it but the carved facade looks a little daunting. So I got in touch with Phil who generously sent me a high res photoshop tweaked black and white version: I'd always wanted to try 3D engraving of something like this but every forum on the subject always has a load of Negative Nancies saying "You can't just take a black and white photo and send it to a laser cutter and hope to engrave it in 3D - you need expensive and complex 3D modeling software" So I took the black and white photo and sent it to the emblaser hoping to engrave it in 3D, and... (should mention that this is 55mm wide..) This is the the laser cut output VS laserweb interface: I think its done pretty good. I've been a bit down on laserweb but its raster option is top notch- here it shows that it has cut timber away: Here is a close up comparison with the original VS the laserweb cut one. For you overseas emblaser buddies the 5c piece is 18mm in diameter, which highlights the detail that the emblaser has managed to get into the figures clothing, face and hand. HOWEVER - one thing that has me intrigued is the last word in the inscription: I have this scene in my head: Facade engraving guy: " Orright gov I've finished your carvings, now I'm orff to the rub a dub for some trouble and strife. No wot I mean orright?" (See I know how you all talk because I've seen Lock Stock and two smoking Mary Poppins, Just like you think we all say "Stone the crows and put another jumbuck in me tucker bag sport" Which I sometimes do say actually.) Mr WH & H Lemay: FactorY! Its a sodding FactorY!!...........No wot I mean orright? A big thanks to Phil for the cleaned up high res pic. Cheers, Chris J

TO do this you do everything above up to and including the 'difference' step. Then draw the smaller circle, and select solid fill. Select it and the original wheel and align vertically and horizontally. Select all, then do path -> difference again. Then with it still selected, do the path _> stroke to path option. I think!

From memory I think that you create the circle, Then choose the star tool, and in the menubar change no. of points to 16, spoke ratio 0.01. The smaller the spoke ration, the thinner the star spokes. Create a star of about the same size as the circle..( I usually make it a touch bigger to ensure the spokes bisect the circle, to make sure the 'difference' step below works correctly.) Select both and align the vertical and horizontal so that the star is centred inside the circle. At this point you will have a circle with 16 spokes all equidistant. If you want to create actual segments that you can manipulate then - Change the star to a path, (Path -> object to path) then do the same to the circle. Select both and do path-> difference. Then path->break apart This will give you 16 pieces of cheese that you can seperate from each other. Edit - Because I had a thought that this being the cameo cutter thread you might want to cut out a 'wheel', ie have a cutline running around the inside of each segment. In that case, do everything above up to and including the difference step, but instead of the break apart, select the wheel (everything should be one path now). If you click on the node tool and move the mouse over the wheel you'll see that each spoke is a single cut line down the centre, so if you tried cutting this out you'd get a pile of 16 equal size segments. If you want a 'wheel' though with the segments cut out between each spoke, select it and choose the path->stroke to path option. This time if you move the node tool over the wheel you'l see each spoke has a cutline running along each edge, so the cutter would give you a spoked wheel. Hope this is understandable, its much easier to do than explain!

The magpie warning signs have gone out at work earlier than usual, they normally don't start attacking until spring when chicks are in the nest, maybe global warming is messing with their heads. I work at a defence establishment and the bird that has been conducting operations on the base over the last few seasons (he's been named Donald, as in "Its Donald....Duck!") only targets service personnel - men and women - who are in uniform. It doesn't matter which uniform, Cams or service dress, he goes for them while ignoring civilians. Even if I wear a shirt identically coloured to the uniform I can walk along that path unmolested while some poor officer in front of me comes under sustained attack from the air. For those who haven't come under a traditional Sydney springtime magpie dive bombing, here is what it looks like (they especially hate cyclists!): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STK2gom08RE

Speaking of the Donald, I've noticed that one of my canaries bears a bit of a resemblance except that he isn't as orange: (Bad digital zoom picture ahead:)

Here's the latest status as of today: 28 June 2017 UpdateUSA Orders We are down to the final 70 orders for delivery to USA customers. We had a delay as we dealt with our freight forwarder applying a significant increase to freight charges. We have decided to absorb this to prevent any further delays. A shipment of 25 machines is ready for collection on Friday. They are fully up-dated with the latest accessories and firmware. We are currently updating a further 25 machines which were in storage and will be ready for delivery next week. The remainder will be assembled and shipped either the end of next week or the following. EU Orders We continue to work through the required paperwork. We have just contracted a CAD expert to complete all the required mechanical drawings and manufacturing documentation. As yet, we cannot supply a completion date for this. Canadian Orders We have been addressing the extra electrical requirements for Canada and will report back shortly. ROW (Rest of world) Each region has it's own set of requirements. We are currently working on these individually. Some situations require submission of our test certificates and registering the product with the local authorities, while others are more involved. All the regs and hoops to jump through are frustrating, especially since 50 years ago when we were all one happy Commonwealth it would probably have been just a matter of changing the plug on the end of the lead and shipping them over , but then you all went off and joined the EU... and look where you are now!