Greengiant

Alan, Here is picture of my trial interlocking cut, done in 7mm on 2mm MDF. For 7mm I used 1.7mm for the brick course spacing, 5.18mm for the vertical full brick spacing and 2.59 for half/end brick vertical spacing, all drawn with 0.2mm lines to represent the laser beam width. I did have a quick dabble in 4mm and used nominal 3mm and 1mm spacing which seemed ok. Will need to do more extensive tests in 4mm because I have a lot to do in that scale during next year. Something I also want do is experiment with creating brickwork artwork that is not perfectly horizontal and vertical to replicate real world situations. Do remember the laser is clinically accurate, hand laid brick work in the real world is not, we are only trying to make a suggestion of the real world, so sometimes true scale measurements do not always look correct, hence why also modellers use highlighting and shading when painting models to simulate the real world. If you are familiar with the work of loco builder Stanley Beason, some of his work he altered from true scale to look right at scale size. And here pushed fully home. A control panel with switch and LED holes, track and lettering done use the 'Laser fill' settings, I used a lower percentage power for the lettering to make it slightly different from the track. With care you can get holes very precise, in this panel the LEDs will hold by friction, the switches have clearance because they are push button. With the laser cutter the accuracy is very useful, for example the person doing the electrics used a gridded electronics board, he gave me the grid specification which I created in my drawing software and placed all switches and LEDs to this grid. I cut the panel, he assembled the electronics, when we met with the two items I am pleased to say they fitted perfect first time. Railway related cutting has taken a backseat lately as the household authorities have requested Xmas based cutting jobs, the latest job was for 15 Christmas tree kits in 3mm plywood. Have fun, keep asking and sharing, I have learnt a lot from this thread before I got my cutter. Martin

Alan, I am currently working in 7mm, so a brick width is not that far off the 2mm MDF I use. You need to remember that you are lazering the mortar and not the bricks, so you have to make allowance for that, for example each of your bricks should be half a mortar x 2 wider and longer. I prefer not use rectangles for the bricks, I think you are giving the laser a lot more work than it needs, I just laser horizontal and vertical lines, along with a few angled ones when doing arches. Although others have worked fine with rectangles, it may well be the drawing software that dictates the method that suits you. I draw all of my buildings complete and use layers to control how the building is built up, it also means I can switch off elements easily while I work. I also print off a paper proof to check my sizings and proportions are what I was expecting. When happy I will copy elements into new files all set at 500mm x 300mm so I can get the most use out of a sheet. Each file normally consists offer layers called: Bricks Holes Slits Cut out Basically I burn the brick courses first, then any holes for windows, maybe doors and possible arches, as long as they are surrounded on all sides they constitute a hole. Next I burn the slits at the end of brick courses, these are basically full depth cuts of just 0.3mm, these are to represent the brick course as it wraps round a wall end or window/door reveal. Then finally the outside edge cuts. To give you some idea, this is some of an end wall which shows the toothed join used on visible pieces and notched join used where it cannot be seen. And close up of the join itself. I will upload some pictures later of an actual cut join. Martin

Alan, The best start is to look at photos of the real thing and work from there. Check out the type of brick bond you want, I am currently working with English bond. Draw a small test panel and go from there, but what has also alreadt said we need to know what software you have and scale would be useful so we can be more specific. Each has their own method, I use Adobe Illustrator because I use that in the day job so very familiar with it and how to get the program to draw a lot of the repetitive stuff. It is important to think how you will assemble your building and the material thickness because you will need to make allowance for this at joins etc. A flat wall need not be flat, I recently cut out a factory wall consisting of three layers of MDF laminated together. Build up a library of windows and doors as well as the openings for same. I also created a toothed join for corners which I use on all the buildings. One thing I will stress, time spent at the outset getting the basics as accurate as possible, will be more than repaid on future projects. If I get a chance I will add some pictures later of buildings cut and screen dumps of the software drawings. Martin

Thank you, PM sent. Martin

Does the owner of a featured layout get a copy of the magazine? I sent an email asking but my email got bounced. Martin

I haven’t yet, but have some 1.5mm ply to try and some 0.8mm and 1mm Trotec as used by Giles to try. Also got some 1.5mm, 2mm and 3mm laserboard on order and will get a selection of card in to try. Should be doing doors this week and at least two windows. Martin

I have been cutting out some brick walling that gradually increases height for about 700mm then levels off. This I broke down into sections of pillars and brick wall, all of which interlock. This is the prototype test piece. The main artwork I rejigged to fit on one and half sheets. This is the first sheet which took nearly 9 hours to cut. In future I will break things down into smaller jobs, having said that, the new software coming out is supposed to have a feature that tells you how long the cut will take, a feature I will find very useful when organising machine time. Foolishly I did not use my proven 4 cuts, but tried 3 cuts at a slower speed, as you will see, it did not always go right through! As an aside, is it only me who seems to have lost the 'preview post' button until after I have posted? Martin

Alan, PM sent hopefully the PDF comes through. There are small errors on the website but I corrected those as I went along making the PDF. In hindsight I should have kept notes of what I corrected and sent to Darkly/Laserweb so they could do the same. Martin

Alan, When I was researching Laserweb settings I did find a website, from which I downloaded the photos and text and made my own reference manaul as a PDF. Basically it has all the screens with a description of what each setting is about. I can let you have a copy if it would be of help. Martin

From my understanding laser fill gives an even colour fill to a predifined vector area by effectively cutting a series of closely spaced parallel lines, set at whatever angle you wish. You may want to change the default horizontal setting, I tend to go for 45 degrees, but if you had a diamond shape to fill, you may prefer horizontal. Set up a small shape and experiment with changing the line spacing and angles, start at 0.15mm and increase sligthly, you should notice, even at 0.2mm spacing, you start to see the laser lines. Wider spaced lines can be handy to give you a different affect.Raster is really for greyscale images, i.e. photos, which I believe probably turns a photo into a bitmap image the laser understands, I could be wrong. My background is graphics and print, so converting my understanding from print into CNC machine thinking has been my first hurdle. Like you I found it difficult finding basic information on the whole process, it is out there, just not always easy to find. I probably learnt more on this forum than the Darkly one. The new software coming out in the New Year may well give us all the tools and a better understanding on what can be done. Above all, keep asking and sharing here. Martin

Alan, I have been doing a lot with 2mm MDF at the moment, to cut through I have found 100% power, 4 passes, start height 11mm (includes the 10mm mat) at a speed of 200mm/min. Etching I used the inbuilt material library settings for 3mm MDF fill, laser width 0.15, angle 45 degrees, start height 12mm and a speed of 2000mm/min. Brick courses I use a cut rather than etch so I get a groove to take the mortar paint. For this I found 80% power, 1 pass, start height 12mm at 400mm/min. Cannot temember my ply settings, not with my log book to check. I do find it useful to have a basic 20mm square file and run various tests which I log into a spreadsheet as I go, from this I will create my definitive settings reference. What I have found frustrating is you can cut a job at 4 passes and find some parts dropping out on the third pass, run it again at 3 passes and it does not cut right through. From my cuts so far I have noticed cut lines near each other take more passes, I think this could be something to do with localised heating up of the area affecting the adhesive, so when it comes to do the next nearest cut the material properties have changed, I could be wrong though. Rest assured, whatever settings work for you, someone else will find half the number of passes and twice the speed works for them! Basically it is down to the batch of material you have, but even then, on the same sheet some areas will cut through, some won't, I ran a job yesterday which took nearly nine hours (will post a pic later), consisting of very similar shapes, some of which cut through, some didn't, so it will be out with the piercing saw this afternoon to finish the job properly. Probably my own fault, I reduced the number of passes from 4 to 3 and reduced the speed thinking this may work. Martin

Yes been there, got the T-shirt! Glad you are up and running. Took me a while to get it settled down and work out what is going on. I have been in contact with Darkly about having something in the new software to help in the whole line up issue. The main problem is with the whole nozzle being rubber and not a very precise location method, would be better to have a solid metal or plastic main nozzle with just a small rubber tip. My first solution was to make the hole larger, the downside is the air assist pressure is reduced, lucky they sent two nozzles with my machine. Martin

When you say you see the beam, what actually do you see? There should be a very intense very small light surrounded by a lighter halo of light. If you do not see a fine point and you have the air assist nozzle on, I will have money on the nozzle is not aligned properly, it is not easy to align until you get the hang of it. To rule out the nozzle, remove it and run the test again. When you remove the nozzle have a look inside, if you see some light grey charing the lazer has been hitting the nozzle and not passing through the hole correctly. Martin

They delivered mine a month before billing me the duties. Martin

DHL delivered mine and about a month later sent me an invoice in the post for the Duty and VAT which I then paid online. Was nowhere near the cost of your one, did you also order a lot of extras, or were you not part of the early order discount scheme? Martin

Alan, From memory mine was 3-4 days after shipment, it was a lot quicker than I was expecting, it came via DHL. What was slow was the VAT and import duty bill, that was over a month later. With regard brickwork, I draw mine in Adobe Illustrator CC 2017, mainly because I use that in the day job, but any version of Illustrator would suffice. I draw the courses and joints as lines using the spacing command which greatly speeds up the drawing. I use layers to seperate out various cut and fill settings I use. Others draw the bricks as rectangles. I had teething troubles with my E2, which are nearly resolved now, for which Darkly have been helpful and currently looking into my lid switch issue, this slowed me down getting up to speed. I spent time trialing different settings to find what worked for me and created a number of templates for items I now just copy and paste. Giles put me on to some good material suppliers, whose service has been good. It may not be worth getting to know Laserweb because Darkly have new software coming out very soon. If you get stuck, just shout out here, a number of us have these now and probably have come across most issues. Something else I spent time on was finding the various web pages on Darkly and Laserweb that contained various instruction manuals which help in the initial understanding, I downloaded the text and pictures and made up my own versions as PDFs and printed a copy out for easy reference. Martin

No chance of that Giles, bit of a long wait until the next one though! Will remember what to do, or will there be more lorries? Martin

Well this afternoon produced a bit more of the main factory walls. This was a 3.75 hour cut, it was daylight when I started and nighttime when it finished! This is the inner and outer walls of the front face hence why the right hand wall only has brick work on the outer edges, these two walls they also form a pillar at the corner spaced by the small strip you will see running across the bottom of the sheet. I think I will increase the speed to 700mm/min on the other buildings, but because I had done other walls of this factory at the 400mm/min speed it made sense to keep it the same so they match. I could of course experiment with reducing the power as well and see what happens. Only four large factories, one water tower and two small sheds to finish drawing and then cut, but now enjoying the experience. Martin

I don't think it does, but I could be wrong. I don't have a problem with Laserweb other than it being a bit laggy at times when setting up the cut information. I produce all my drawings in Adobe Illustrator CC 2017, breaking everything down into layers of cut type, which then import into Laserweb via an Illustrator exported SVG file and all the layers come through fine, then I just apply the cut information for each layer, generate the GCODE and press go. The new software apparently takes native Illustrator 'ai' files so fine by me. Still experimenting with the E2 and enjoying it after the initial teething problems. Martin

Looks good, what material are you cutting here? Martin

I have been experimenting this afternoon with some settings for producing bricks on 2mm MDF, using the 10mm mat. I started off with my base setting which gave what I thought acceptable bricks if a bit clinical in their look. Then copied this artwork and increased the speed in 100mm/min increments. The base one is top left run at 80% power, 1 pass, start height 12mm and at 400mm/min. So from left to right, bottom to top they were 400, 500, 600, 700, 800 and 900mm/min. Close ups taken using an iPhone through a linen tester, so not ideal. 400mm/min 500mm/min 600mm/min 700mm/min 800mm/min 900mm/min You can see, especially on the 900mm/min one the pulsing of the laser is not quick enough for the traveling speed. I quite like 700mm/min because the minimal pulsing has broken the rather too perfect lines of the slower runs and gives a sort of weathered brick feel. Sprayed with some red oxide primer to help see more clearly the cutting. Crudely applied some mortar paint, the deeper cut versions consume more paint obviously so may benefit better from rubbing in some DAS into the courses. Will try this later. Martin

Nice brick work Jim. It may be the photo resolution, but some of your brick work courses have what looks like V shape patterns, they may well have been intentional of course. Drawing bricks as rectangles is giving the machine a lot more work than is needed. I started with rectangles but quickly changed to long lines for courses and short lines for the joints. I use Adobe Illustrator so maybe easier to do than in a CAD package. For example I draw one short vertical join line and one long horizontal course line, then copy and paste as many as I need, then use the ‘space from key object’ function, set the value and instantly spaced lines. I set up a full 500mm x 300mm sheet of brick, then copied and pasted this on the walls as needed, deleting what is not required. In hinsight it was a waste of time, I spent more time deleting what was not required because Laserweb does not seem to like Illustrator masks to remove items quickly. Now I just draw each wall using the copy/paste and ‘space from key object’ function. Currently doing some power/speed tests on brick panels to find the optimum quality/time settings, will post my findings later. Martin

Here you go. It is this thread, scroll down through the posts and one by Domenic reveals the information. Martin

Alan, The link to what, the ply and MDF sites or the software notification? Martin

Just seen this post on the Darkly site about the new software. 'The new software is not Open-Source. It is developed by a dedicated team who are committed to the software's continual development, support and motivated to create a commercial product with our customers in mind. The software will be offered as a paid upgrade for existing Emblaser 2 customers. We will be offering it at very reduced price. We are currently working that out.' Must admit I was a little surprised we will have to pay for the software, especially us early adopters paid for the macines over 16 months a go. Will reserve final judgement once the offer is known and software seen. Martin