flubrush

That happened to me using the PicSender software recently. PicSender announced that it had found an error in the GCode and halted the cut in the middle of the job and the laser was still on. I couldn't find an error in the GCode - generated by Cut2D Laser - so I started again withUGS and all went well. I'm going to be a bit hesitant about using PicSender again. Jim.

Martin, That's a possibility. From pictures, it looks as though E2 uses a pair of 6mm rods as the horizontal carriers, similar to the E1, and these are actually quite flexible and could be being deflected by something like the hose. I don't think the cabling could be stiff enough to deflect the head if it's the same FFC as used on the E1. The only other thing I can think of is some variation in the tension in the toothed belts at different positions of the head although I'm not sure how that might happen in practice - maybe a belt with varying thickness. It would be worth raising the matter with Darkly support in case it is a situation which has happened before and that there is a method for sorting the problem out. Jim.

Martin, I had a similar problem on my A4 Emblaser 1 and the problem turned out to be a bent horizontal support bar. I used a steel square on the base held against the bars and found a variation between the two. I proved it by rotating the bar I suspected through 90 degrees and the deviation from straight almost disappeared and rotated it a further 90 degrees and the deviation went in the other direction. I don't know how easy access is to the support bars in the E2, or how they are mounted, and whether you can do a similar check. I replaced the bent bar with another 6mm bar from a stripped down printer which has worked quite well but I intend to get some proper rod from a specialist supplier https://www.automotioncomponents.co.uk/en/catalog/linear/linear-shaft-bars/hard-stainless-linear-shafts/l1772.06 Jim.

Alan, Adding to what others have suggested, I use double sided tape to hold sheet material down to my base, which is a sheet of plate glass. I only use two to four small squares at the corners since it can be difficult removing the cut piece if you've completely covered the underside with the tape. The tape should work on a sheet metal base as well. I find that I have to clean off my base every so often to get rid of the build up of adhesive from the tape - meths or IPA does the job on a piece of cloth. Jim.

Giles, A vacuum cleaner is a great addition to a CNC mill where you will be cutting dry. I've got a bagless cheap model from Tesco and it has repaid the investment many times over. Also comes in handy on the Emblaser when betting rid of all the small window cutouts. :-) Jim.

Alan, I mentioned it further up this thread. :-) But I get mine from Maple Street. It cuts well on my Emblaser 1. Here's a search on their web site for the MDF sizes they stock. http://maplestreet.co.uk/advanced_search_result.php?keywords=mdf&x=0&y=0 The 1mm is about 1.2mm, the 1.5mm is closer to 1.6mm and the 2mm is closer to 1.8mm. Their delivery is quite quick but you sometimes get a few days delay if they have to get more stock in. There's a minimum order of five sheets on the 1mm sheet [Edit] although I now notice that they don't seem to be asking for a minimum order any longer. Jim.

Alan, Do you know the diameter of your laser beam? This sets the minimum size of the mortar lines you are creating. At the moment I am getting my Emblaser 1 beam down to around 0.175mm and you might be able to get yours focussed smaller but I haven't heard of anyone getting down to 0.1mm unless that is possible with the new Emblaser 2 diode head. Mortar lines can be 0.5" in real life so a laser beam diameter of around 0.17mm will do for this in 4mm scale. I'm not sure how you might measure your beam diameter. I do mine by etching a line on a bit of MDF and measuring it under a USB microscope with the jaws of my vernier caliper. Another way could be to cut a strip of MDF or ply with the beam using two lines a known distance apart then measure the cut width with calipers or a micrometer and the difference between the drawn width of the lines and the width of the cut strip is the width/diameter of your laser beam. [LATER] Your brick sizes are a wee bit large for 4mm. The average brick is usually around 8.5" long and about 2.5" tall which gives a length of 2.83mm by 0.83mm high which, when you add on the mortar width of 0.17mm, gives you a brick plus one layer of mortar sizer of 3mm x 1mm, or 9" x 3" in full size. Brick depth is usually around 4" which is about 1.33mm in 4mm scale. With a mortar layer of 0.17mm, this gives a combined width of 1.5mm which is half of the stretcher length plus mortar layer, which is what you want for laying a bond easily. You might find 1mm MDF better to use than 1.5mm since I find that the sizes are nominal and normally are a small amount thicker - like 1.6mm for 1.5mm nominal and 1.2mm for 1mm nominal Jim.

I think I remember having to pay the VAT, etc., before my Emblaser 1 was delivered. Jim.

I use a CAD program to do the initial work. It's what I've been used to for years and I find it quickest for me. As discussed further up the thread, I draw my bricks as rectangles - the two main sizes are the header (end) and stretcher (side) of your brick and you will also need a quarter and three quarter stretcher to do the corners of Flemish and English bond. I decide a mortar width then I place bricks in rows then copy rows and stack them with the mortar spacing to build up a panel of bond of a reasonable size. I then use this panel to build up the sides of a building by copying and placing it. You have to adjust the basic bond for corners and this is where you have to go in and modify the basic bond at the corners. With English and Flemish, you have to use the quarter and the three quarter stretchers to make sure that each corner has alternate header and stretchers. That can take a bit of fiddling around. In full size brick laying a bricklayer would have laid out his brick courses so that there was the minimum of brick cutting to accommodate corners and openings but if there was a lot of features on a wall, the bond might have to be adjusted continually to accommodate window sizes and brick features. When it comes to laser etching, I etch the bricks by getting the laser to do a cut round each brick, so nearly every mortar line gets two laser runs so you might have to adjust your laser power down to allow for this. Also in Cut2D Laser, you have to watch out for your kerf width and your mortar width. In my case I have a mortar width of 0.2mm between bricks. If I set the kerf in Cut2D Laser to 0.2, then it won't etch into any spaces between bricks. The easiest way to get round this is to set the kerf width to under 0.2mm - 0.199mm will do!! In my case I got my laser kerf down to 0.18mm so setting that in Cut2D meant that all my brick courses were cut. Others cut the mortar lines as long horizontals and short verticals between bricks which means that the laser just makes single mortar cuts in each direction which could be quicker when cutting. You also don't run into the problem of etching between brick rectangles. But I find it more difficult to set out bonds using single mortar lines. So you choose what suits you. For corner joints, I set a cut line down the ends of the bricks which are going to interlock at a corner and have the laser cut outside the line then use the offset value in Cut2D to fine tune the fit of the corner join. I have found that with thin MDF - 1mm and 1.5mm - it's not a good idea to have the join too tight since the mdf can break when putting the parts together. I do a lot of tests of small corner samplers to get the best fit before I apply the settings to the larger parts of the building. That's a rough summary. :-) It might raise more questions than it answers. :-) Jim.

If you mean the buildings I am making, then they are not intended for sale, but only for use on my layout. They are also to S scale so that might limit the interest. :-) Jim.

Many thanks for the pointer. Jim.

Interesting!! I've never seen pulsing on my Emblaser 1 and I tend to work at 960mm/min and upwards. I use a USB microscope to check cut lines for focus adjustment so I have been looking at my cuts at quite a magnification on occasion. Jim.

Can I just ask for some clarification about E2 and Laserweb? Do I understand that Cut2D Laser won't work with E2 - maybe no suitable post processor available? Jim.

Tell me about it. :-) It took forever, not helped by losing the work on the upper storey when I forgot to save the file and closed down the CAD program cancelling the "Do you want to save" message. :-) I forgot to say in the previous message, but I might even do it all over again to correct one or two small problem areas and write this effort off to experience. I also want to see if I can make better use of the MDF when cutting it. I've been tending to cut parts as individual operations and I'm finishing up with loads of bits of MDF with parts cut out of the bottom left corner. :-) I'm going to look at filling a sheet with parts then cutting parts from that sheet so that the best use is made of the MDF. I get my MDF from Maple Street whose sheet size is 500mm x 250mm and this fits nicely in the A4 Emblaser with part of the sheet poking out of one of the sides. I won't cut a full A4's worth at a time since that would take forever with all the brick etching, etc., but cut parts of the A4 sheet to keep the cutting time down for each operation. For example it was taking just under two hours to do the upper story walls at 16mm/sec (960mm/min). I'm actually tempted to up the brick etching speed to cut down the time. I draw all my bricks as rectangles and etch each brick as a rectangle so I am effectively cutting round each brick twice. I've thought about trying some other way that might use a single cut but I see that increasing the CAD work quite considerably and that's quite lengthy as it is. Jim.

I thought you might be interested in this ...based on this There's more on the Emblaser thread here http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/108310-darkly-labs-emblaser-affordable-laser-cutter-review/page-38&do=findComment&comment=2953749 I actually did a form of photo shoot using StreetView and got a lot of information to base my models on. I've given up trying to emulate the brick bond. :-) Jim.

I now have the Emblaser1 working fine again - mostly down to me having a fight with the update to Cut2Dlaser. I've now resolved all that and I've been cutting MDF again. :-) This is a low relief industrial building to go on the back of my US switching layout and here the progress has been set up in its position on the layout. It's based on a building in Portland, Maine with a picture extracted from Google Street View I've taken the general design features of the doors and windows and done a bit of messing around match my requirements. I've added buttresses to the ground floor to get a bit more relief on the building... ...but I've changed the door from a hinged variety to a sliding door. There will be a loading platform between the building and the siding and a hinged door would have been impractical on a prototype with such a restricted area on the platform. The other thing I tried to copy was the brick bond and I've gone some way towards that but gave in gracefully to achieving full compliance when the prototype was examined closely - maybe called something like American Bucolic. :-) It has all been done using 1.5mm MDF since that is pretty well spot on for the depth of a brick in S scale. The door was cut from 2mm MDF and I will add a card or thin plywood overlay to the framing to get a bit more relief on the door. I also got my second G7 lens during the week and I tried it out and got a definite improvement - i.e. dropping from eight passes at 16mm/sec to six passes for cutting through 1.5mm. The difference for 2mm was even better dropping from ten passes at 16mm/sec down to the same six passes. I haven't worked that out yet. :-) I find that the number of passes for cutting through varies with the size of the object being cut out. I can only assume that with small objects the MDF retains heat from the previous pass and this means less cuts to get through whereas with large items the MDF has cooled down by the time the laser gets round again Jim..

I had a run with the diode dropped in the head casing. This shows the diode case extending ~4mm below the bottom of the head casing. I re-focussed and got a smaller diameter laser spot - approximately 0.15mm. I'm using the original Emblaser lens. To re-focus I had to unscrew the lens and I was aware that the original lens isn't held on by many threads and I half expected it to drop out. :-) On another cut test I found that I could cut through 2mm MDF in 5 cuts at 80% power and 16mm/sec speed, so an improvement, probably due to the smaller and more intense laser spot. I also did a test using Giles' setting - 100% at 6mm/sec and that cut through the 2mm MDF in two passes The 80%:16mm/sec test is the top line and the 100%:6mm/sec test is the bottom line. Excuse the previously etched material - a scrapped floor for a 32nd scale wagon whcih is still good enough for testing. :-) I'll leave the diode in this setting to see how it gets on and I could have my second G7 lens in a week or two which I will try at that setting as well. The main improvement to me is the smaller laser spot size. Jim. PS. I had to cut a small part out of an internal wall in the hood to clear the lens - not too difficult a job with the 3D printed material used.

Giles, Thanks for the speed and power information. Maybe I'm trying to cut too fast but I tend to start at 1000mm/min or about 16mm/sec on MDF and go upwards for card - about 1500mm/min. I think I started this to do more passes at higher speed to minimise charring. I did wonder if I was working a lot faster speeds than other people when I saw someone quoting 150mm/min in a Darkly forum and I thought he might have mistyped 15mm/sec. :-) I tend to work at 80% with a thought to laser life which may be unnecessary. I'm just about to try dropping the diode to see what advantages it might have. I get my MDF from Maple Street http://maplestreet.co.uk/hobbys-catalogue-items-board-wood-p-4764.html and that seems to etch and cut well with no problems. Jim.

Nick, I've just sent off for another one to try my luck again. :-) I see the price is now getting close to three pints. :-) Jim.

I've just had a day or two doing a bit more messing around on the Emblaser 1. I now find that VTransfer is not perfect. With more complex toolpaths it is now pausing before fast moves - the G0 command in the GCode file - when using it to send .NC files to the Emblaser. I'm now using Universal GCode Sender to do teh job and that seems to be working well so far. I've seen some reports that UGS tends to choke with very large files but I haven't hit that problem yet, but I'll investigate other methods of sending Gcode just in case it does happen. I also took the opportunity to try out the G7 lens and the results were a bit underwhelming - a bit like Nick Bastable reported a while ago. I got it focussed down to a 0.2mm kerf and couldn't get it any smaller. At this setting it took 5 cuts to get through 2mm MDF (nominal - actually about 1.75mm actual). The original lens took one more cut to do the same job. The laser settings were 16mm/sec, 80% power. I actually ran a second test after cleaning the lenses just in case there was a problem with dirt, but the result was the same. I'm not too worried. I dare say the manufactuiing tolerance is quite wide on a cheap lens and I've got one at the poorer end. :-) As an aside is it possible for others to quote their full laser settings when stating what thickness they have cut in a certain number of passes. Power and feed are also important factors. :-) I also remember someone - Giles I think - talking about moving the laser closer to the material. In all my messing around with the laser diode over the past month, I've found that it's quite easy to alter the height of the laser diode within the housing. There's grub screw at the back of the bottom of the alloy case for the diode which performs two tasks. It provides a stop to prevent the diode assembly being pulled off the carriage but it also locks the diode in place in the alloy housing. Loosening this screw and carefully pushing or pulling the diode can alter the height. Use the lens to to the pushing or pulling. I might experiment with moving it closer to the bed to see if I get any improvement. It also means that I can keep using the focus tool as supplied. Jim.

I'm now back to working properly - only on the original lens so far. When I garner up the enthusiasm to do another focus setup I'll check out my G7 one. :-) But I found that the factor that was causing me all my problem was that the new version of Cut2DLaser was changing properties of a toolpath when I called it up with the Edit facility to view it. In some cases it set the power to 100% with files I had generated on the original Cut2D version. In other cases it set the number of cuts to 1 in toolpaths I had generated on the updated Cut2D. I haven't done exhaustive tests to check out every possibility, but I've now had enough experience to know what to watch out for. My updated version will generate the correct toolpath .NC file with all the values I have set, but close the toolpath and re-open it with the Edit facility and it's almost certain that something will have changed. My Cut2D has also stopped sending data direct to Emblaser via VTransfer VTransfer seems to work OK on its own and it will send .NC files to the Emblaser with no problems. But I'm now saving every toolpath to .NC file so that I can check that the speed and power settings are what they should be then sending these files to the Emblaser using VTransfer or UGS. I'm surprised that I'm getting problems with Vectric software since I've used the Cut2D Desktop with my CNC mill for the past seven years with no problems at all. Jim.

Jason, Try saving your toolpath(s) to file and sending it to Emblaser via Universal GCode Sender as I mentioned above and see if that works OK. I suspect that it will. Any project that I have saved to file has worked as expected when the file is used. The latest version of the post processor has the following included +================================================ + + History + + Who When What + ======== ========== =========================== + EdwardP 27/03/2017 Added 'dummy' retract and plunge + moves which were causing zero + feedrate values and stalling machine + EdwardP 13/06/2017 Made feed rate always output to prevent + a suppressed plunge moves masking the + first feedrate. + ======== ========== =========================== ...which shows that EdwardP has been chasing a problem with turning the laser on and off interacting with the feed rates to the laser head. The plunge move - M3 in GCode - turns the laser on; the retract move - M5 in GCode - turns the laser off. Here's a sample from a .NC file ( Generated with Darkly Labs PP v2.4) ( File name: Laser Cut 11 ) ( File created: Friday November 03 2017 - 03:38 PM) ( Material Size: X= 150.000, Y= 150.000) ( XY Origin for Material = Bottom Left Corner) ( XY Origin Position = X:0.000, Y:0.000) N60 G21 N70 G00 X74.500 Y10.000 N80 M3 S48 N90 G1 Y100.000 F1200.0 N100 M5 N110 G00 X76.000 Y10.000 N120 M3 S46 N130 G1 Y100.000 F1200.0 N140 M5 ...where everything looks OK with the fast move to start of cut - G00 - then the laser turned on - M3 Sxx - then the cut command - G1 Fxx - then the laser off command - M5. The Sxx parameter sets the laser power level where 100% = 255 and the Fxx parameter sets the feed rate in mm/min in metric setup. However, I'm not sure about the setting of the cut parameters changing for a cut. I have certainly seen the software changing parameters in projects started on the original Cut2D laser, where the laser power was being reset to 100%. And if I set it back to another power level, the file output still had the laser power at 100%. I'm also suspicious that there have been other power setting variations and I've got a feeling that I've been led a merry dance over the past few weeks chasing my laser power problem. I had been using direct output using VTransfer when I got the problem. I'm now using UGS and checking the .NC files to ensure that the power setting is what I had set. I'm also going to have to find out all my power, feed and number of cut settings again since I was relying on the Vectric CRV files storing the, :-) Jim.

Giles, The advantage of the new version of Cut2D Laser is the ability to set the width of the laser beam and then being able to place it either on a line or on the outside or the inside of a line. I find this a great improvement over the original version since it allows more predictable accuracy in cutting. For example, when I was trying to cut accurate bricks and brick corner joints with the previous version, I found I was having to draw extra lines offset from the actual drawing lines to use as the laser cutting lines. The new version can do this for me. I think the problem is with VTransfer interacting with Cut2D Laser when sending a cut direct to the Emblaser. In tests I did at the start of the year when I got the hesitant cutting problem with the software updates, I found that files created with the updated Cut2D worked fine when sent to Emblaser via Universal GCode Sender. It was only when sending direct to Emblaser that I got the hesitation and stopping during cuts. I'm now using the updated Cut2D with UGS and that seems to work very well. On another matter, I believe I was cutting 160gm light grey card for window frames using 20mm/sec and 5% power before my Emblaser started giving problems. These were the settings in the file I used immediately before my problem appeared. Now the laser wont cut the card at 20mm/sec:20% setting. I've been in contact with support and I've swapped the laser head, head PCB and FFC and still no solution. What settings would you use to cut 160gm card? I'm using the original lens. I was just about to swap to the other lens to try it out when the problem occurred. Jim.

Jason, I missed that!!. I think I assumed that the thread was about the earlier update I had downloaded and installed after I had been involved in the problems with the machine stopping, or being very slow and hesitant with files from the new version of Cut2D laser. I'll try a download and see how it goes. I too haven't been all that happy with Cut2D Laser and VTransfer since its update and I've been tending to use saved files and Universal GCode Sender since it appears to be a more reliable method. In fact, at the moment I can't get Cut2D to send files direct to the Emblaser via VTransfer. I've used Cut2D Desktop for several years with my CNC milll and it has been rock solid with no problems so I'm a bit surprised that these problems are happening with the laser version. Jim.

Jason, I have had problems using old files on the latest Cut2D version. When I open files created on the previous version the power settings are over-written to 100% and even if you change them to a different power output, the .NC files created remain at 100%. This caused me a fair bit of grief when I was trying to chase a fault with the power of my laser. I found that I had to start a new project with the new software when the power setting and .NC file creation was fine. I mentioned this to Domenic in email exchanges about the laser problem and he did say that I should start new projects on the latest software. My problem with this was that I was using my files to keep details of power and speed settings for different materials and cuts and I've now lost that and I'll have to start over again - that's when I've got the Emblaser working properly. :-( Jim.