monkeysarefun

Hi Ian, In post #391 (on page 16) of this thread I posted a .pdf file and a .crv file of a small sample of brickwork. Perhaps it could be useful to test and/or compare with yours to see if you can see where the problem lies?. Personally I did initially try .ps and .eps formats but had issues with it joining separate vectors (eg 2 windows) together with a cutline and other strange behaviour, so from there I've just stuck with .pdf format as import into Cut2D. Which has its own other issues regarding the registration of different layers, but I've got a workaround for that at least. Additionally if .eps is an allowed file type, you could post your file up to the forum here and we can all have a play!

Hi Domenic, welcome to the forum, its great to have you here! Ian - as per what Nick and Giles wrote. I often forget to select any vectors before hitting the 'calculate' button and get a message similar to yours. They will go pink when selected. Jason - great bricks! I had a bit of a disaster from the rains of last weekend which flooded out my hobby room. Luckily the Emblaser was upstairs where I'd been using it in the warm, so was unharmed. Annoying thing is all the card and taskboard and ply that I've been acquiring over the last few months were leaning up against the wall and soaked up water and are now just a soggy mess. Though compared to what others in Picton (just the other side of the hill here) lost after having 2 metres of water through the town, I feel petty whinging about it..

Thanks Giles, in between considering if I should move my laser to higher ground I trawled the archives of the darklylabs forum and discovered you need to change a Z to an S in one of the many obscure fields of the picsense configuration screen. That software is definitely CNC nerd centric! That fixes the 'stay in one spot' problem, now I have to figure out how to let it know where 0,0 physically is because when it starts the laser head apparently tries to go a foot or so beyond the physical start point of the emblaser and there is a worrying 5 seconds or so of the screeching sound of slipping belts as it jams up against the chassis.

No worries Ian, The inset picture shows them as they come - you just need to slide switch 1 and 4 up to match the others.

G'day Ian, This is what my PCB looks like - and you can see the dip switches there. The fact mine says Rev -1 and you say yours says Version 2 might iindicate that they have updated things and removed them. Which makes sense since I don't imagine very many 3W lasers are sold, and the 4 Watt doesn't need its power input limited so they are no longer necessary, I reckon! On a different note while I'm here, has any body tried out the picsense and picsender photo engraving software from the links on the darklylabs site? I downloaded it on Friday but so far its rather frustrating and all I've managed so far is for the laser to sit in one spot and burn a little hole, until I cancel the programme at which point the software loses connectivity with the laser and only a laptop reboot gets it back. If anyone HAS managed to get it going I'd love some tips! I'll carry on again today, the weather is good for nothing else here this weekend, though if the rain keeps up I might have to get started on that ark. Bright note, my house now has water views.

Welcome aboard sir! On the subject of materials, not apparently being able to get Trotec easily here, I have been buying random things when I see them in shops and trying them out... One material that I'm really impressed with is a kind of metalized paper - and similar in card, that you can get from office supply or arts and craft shops here. The card works out at around .3mm going by my calipers, and the paper at around .17mm. Its impressively cheap, and does also come in 300gsm weight on Ebay. In use it displays more the characteristics of plastic than card, in that bits that aren't quite cut through can be snapped out cleanly, without leaving a little tuft, or tearing like card would. It also doesn't scorch like card. It has a slightly shimmery metalic sheen but can be painted (and glued) without a problem, and it does come in many many colours, though not really a true black (my go-to colour for lasering now!) unfortunately, the one called 'Charcoal' is actually a very dark green. Both this one and the very dark navy blue ones laser really well though and like I said, they can be painted afterwards. I've been using 100% power, 1 pass at 10mm/sec, but I think it could go a little faster. I'm not sure how they compare - in quality and price - to the dedicated laser materials, but if you can find them around the place its worth giving them a go. I also bought a few sheets of 'RC board' from an American website called rustystumps.com. I haven't tried it out yet, but it seems to be a kind of woody/pulpy material a bit similar to MDF. It is only in 2 thicknesses, the thinnest being .4mm equivalent, which still sounds a little thick for what you are after. At $4.55 US for an 8inch by 12inch sheet. Again, I'm not sure how that compares to MDF, Trotec and so on, the killer though is the postage here from the US. If ever I think I've got a little bit too much money I get something posted from the US and that quickly gets rid of it!

So, I made some...

These open the market up for a lasercut 1.05mm spanner....

Darklylabs have been aware of this thread and have been following it since it started pretty much. By signing up as a member Domenics' stated intention is to hopefully be able to assist with any questions we might have as well as to gain some two-way information on how we use it, and its performance in the real world. Any of us who have needed support from Darklylabs will know how responsive and helpful they are, this step will only add to that I reckon.

I'm still amazed ta the fineness of detail that can be created, as shown in the posts above. Me, I've been side-tracked playing with lasering wood veneers for a jewelery box top.( Got to keep in the good books if I want to get an Emblaser 2 for Christmas!) I'll post up a picture when its all finished. On a slightly different matter, Domenic has been in touch, he was wondering if we'd mind if Darklylabs joined up to this forum? Personally I can see only an upside - we'd have direct access to them to sort out any problems, and they'd get to see the kind of things that the Emblaser gets used for and any limitations that we come up against. If anyone has any thoughts for or against I'd be happy to hear them. Chris.

G'day Jason, That platform surface does look really good! I've been doing Mothers Day cards to order for random strangers who've heard I have a laser cutter. Kind of like when I got all mid life crisis-y and bought this subtle 6Litre V8 ute Suddenly people I didn't even know I knew needed their fridge moved....

I couldn't find the 'hmmmm.. food for thought' emoticon, so.. Hmmm... food for thought!

I'm happy with the Emblasers size and convenience, but more power is always welcome, so the news that they will be offering the improved more powerful laser diodes as upgrades, means thats probably the best of both worlds (depending on how much they cost obviously!) New software never goes astray, either..

G’day Jason, Can I attach .svg files here? If so here is a small section of 4mm bricks, if you feel like giving it a go. FLEMISH_extract.svg I initially created it using a script to generate the horizontal and vertical lines but sending this to the laser didn’t give a completely satisfying result – the lines were too thin and there was a slight overburn from the vertical joins intruding on the bricks. Playing with Inkscape I converted all the lines to paths and then joined them all together to give a kind of brick stencil if you can picture that.. kind of like the ones they use to cover concrete paths and drives with brick patterns. It is tileable,. To join tiles together, butt them up, select both tiles with the path tool and select the union option under the paths menu. I’ve also included the .pdf that can go straight into CutLaser. FLEMISH_extract.pdf To cut in ply, select ‘cut’ at 80% power, 20mm/sec 1 pass. This will etch each brick individually. If you select the ‘fill’ option it will ‘engrave' the mortar lines rather than drawing them as straight lines (ie, imagine ‘colouring them in’ with tiny lines across the mortar joins rather than drawing straight lines with a pencil). I thought at first this option was the one to go with but in reality it takes longer than the cut option, looks no better and can do strange things if there are other lines such as windows or wall edges that bisect the mortar lines – you can end up with sections of bricks engraved rather than the mortar lines. The result should be similar to this if using the above settings .( ignoring the undercoat and the dry-brush experiments!) , if you have the focus and belt tensions set right. This is cheaper poplar ply, rather than the more expensive beech, the beech doesn’t cut with the laser.

Price to be announced later this week, shipping supposedly last quarter of this year.

Pricing is to be announced later this week, shipping supposedly 4th quarter of this year.

Emblaser 2 looks impressive but what sold the Emblaser to me was its small footprint and weight. WiFI as per the new one would be nice though, although since I prefer to be in the vicinity of the Emblaser when its working, a USB cable from a laptop is no huge difficulty. The new one obviously has its advantages (pre-focussed laser!) its assumedly ready built, is vented and has a covered work area (no need to wear safety glasses) but for you blokes there the extra costs of shipping a bigger, heavier unit to the UK possibly makes the Glowforge a more attractive unit (if they ever actually release it!) for I'm guessing around the same purchase price.. If I had neither, and was give the choice of Emblaser or the new one, I reckon for what it does at the price the original one still would win me over. And I do prefer the post-modern 'homemade' look it has I think.

I don't know how big a one pound coin is but looking at that, I'd say jam jar lid size? You guys have big pockets. Quite a few posts here over the last couple of days! Jason - The wobbly horizontal lines obviously imply an issue - if you do have dodgy brackets that could be it, otherwise I'd be checking the belt tension on one or other of the belts, because all lines should be perfectly straight. If you are still having the problem after you fit the new brackets then send a pic of the test plot to darklylabs, from posts on their forum they seem able to look at this and diagnose most issues going by which part of the plot looks wrong. I've bought some taskboard but so far have only used it to scribe a brickwall onto (into?). Ill post it up when I get it painted, hopefully this weekend. Quick impressions of the stuff itself, its recycled so it has a fairly rough fibrousy recycled finish to it, which is great for brickwalls, not sure about carriage sides. Also it separates into layers quite easily, again good for weathered brick walls (ie some bricks can be lifted off to imply damage), but not sure about representations of other surfaces. The only none laser cutting I've done on it (ie with a stanley knife) is to cut a piece off of the original 20 inch sheet to use in the laser cutter. I found the knife blade did catch quite easily, causing tufting and tearing of the cut, although it was just a rough hacking cut to be fair, done pretty fast and with not too much care about the end result. I'm not sure how it would go in a cutting machine, given the high-angle of the blade. I base the above on the 1/16th taskboard, I also have the 1/32 which I haven't tried yet, but being thinner that might cut more cleanly. Also it is meant to be sandable so that might get rid of the slightly rough finish, I haven't tried that yet. So based on one little fairly thick bit that I've done one knife cut on and lasered a patch of brickwork on, so far I'm happy with its abilities to reproduce a brick wall, but beyond that I can't really comment. Oh, I also haven't yet tried spraying a bit with water and seeing if it sets in intricate curves, but I'll try that with an offcut , again hopefully this weekend. Final count down to the 'big announcement". The timing is based on midnight, our time. Why do techy companies love midnight releases - what have they invented - "Call Of Duty: Lasers?" (although that would be quite cool...)

Following on from Michaels comments there,not sure if its an issue with you but be aware that the Emblaser does A3 maximum, whereas the Silver Bullet and the other cutters have a wider cutting area and they have a feed system so maximum length is much greater too.

Gday Milkbar1, I'n still on a learning curve with using the Emblaser and getting the settings correct, hence some of the excessive scorching at times! Regarding your particular request, have you checked out the DarklyLabs community forum and in particular the Project showcase there, as well as in the archived area. ? I know for sure that there are users there who are sucessfully doing what you are asking and they usually have accounts of materials used and settings required. As for your query about scanning the designs, you would need to import the scan into a graphics package such as Inkscape or the Cut2Dlaser that comes with the Emblaser, and either trace it to create the cutting line or by using the trace bitmap option which automatically traces the line for you, though this requires a fairly high contrast (eg black design on white background) to work successfully, but if you do have black and white the tracing is usually very accurate - , thats how I did all the ironwork examples posted yesterday. Hopefully this helps out, if nor feel free to ask more questions, either here or at the darklylabs site - they are very supportive.

Nice! It looks much more complex.

Thanks for confirming the colour thing - it was quite a revelation discovering that today! Re your brackets and the cool 3D kind of effect - I guess there are layers there?

Hi Dave, Just hold off for 4 days or so going by the darklylabs homepage! Speed of the cutter IS one factor that causes burn, but it is a real juggling act to get the right mix of speed, power, number of passes and so on to prevent it. Speeding up the laser can introduce other issues - purely from watching it do its stuff the laser isn't a steady light source, it seems to pulse - actually,rapid flicker would be more accurate. So by going faster you can tend to get perforations rather than a clean cut line. I've yet to come up with a fool proof algorithm that takes in power, material, speed, complexity of detail and number of passes that will prevent burning. However, todays experiments with the black card are the first time I've had zero burn holes when doing really tiny shapes, so I'm going to stick using that I reckon! Thanks for the comments.

And just one more - because this is more fun than cutting the grass, which is what I'm meant to be doing..

Actually, seeing Giles awesome black bracket made me wonder if there might be a 5th variable (apart from material, power, speed and number of passes) - the colour of the material. The eternal optimist from work who hopes I'm going to do his wedding invites had given me some various sample stock to try. One was a black cardboard, about 0.35mm thick. I tried the same bracket that I'd been playing around with using white paper and photo paper, and there is definitely an improvement in the result. I was able to lower the power and up the speed and every little element was cut through cleanly without needing to poke them out with tweezers: Emboldened ( or should that be Emblasened?) I went hunting for more little things to cut out. Here is a little wrought iron kind of panel, it had no trouble coping with the fine details here: So I went finer still - a wrought iron door. Some of the very fine twirly bits didn't make it through but on a whole the detail is pretty good: Then I got a bit cocky, the detail here is about a hairsbreadth and it was at this point that bits started breaking off: But still, I don't know of any other way - apart from maybe having your own personal Allan Downes with Stanley knife attachment - to get fine details like this: Settings were 80% power and a single pass at 18mm/sec. I can't be sure whether its the quality of the card that makes it work so well , or whether black does absorb the laser or whatever, but I'll be using this black card from now on, and I won't be buying any more scalelink brackets, gates or railings!