Use the Material Test Tool in Lightburn for better results with your laser
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 21 янв 2023
- I'm often asked what settings to use on various materials and lasers. While I can give an estimate based on my experience, what you really want to do is run a material test grid to find the exact settings that will work with your laser on your material and in your environment. In this video I step through using the material test tool on both cut jobs and engraving jobs to find the exact settings for a new laser in the shop.
Follow me on Instagram and Facebook for behind-the-scenes on what is going on in my workshop!
/ vintauri
/ vintaurisworkshop
Support my channel by using the links below to products I find useful:
Xtool Lasers - www.xtool.com/?ref=vintauri&u...
Jiccoda Laser - amzn.to/3wnZdOW
Starbond CA Glue Kit - amzn.to/3YTewMP
Rare Earth Magnets - amzn.to/3Q9CoI9
Hobby Knife - amzn.to/3YJQ8x3
5-Minute Epoxy - amzn.to/3jAbkWg
Laser Saftey Glasses: amzn.to/3GeZvxQ
3mm Basswood - amzn.to/3GlZVSS
The following music was used for this media project:
Music: Local Forecast - Slower by Kevin MacLeod
Free download: filmmusic.io/song/3988-local-...
License (CC BY 4.0): filmmusic.io/standard-license
@lightburnsoftware7189 
Развлечения
Yes I have followed your instructions and found them to teach me a way to learn. I only have a D1 pro 20 watt and you seem to have a wide selection of videos on this Laser.😀
Thanks for sharing - super helpful!
Glad it was helpful!
You changed and made So much right for me with this video. THANK YOU. I could never get that darn built in Grid Test to work right until this video.
Glad I could help!
OUTSTANDING. I'm new to Lightburn and didn't even know this Materials Test Generator was part of the tools tab. This will help me so much and your presentation was spot on for a newbie like me. I appreciate your time and effort in producing the video.
I’m glad it was helpful. I try to think of things like this that will help people getting started. It’s a great tool to use!
same here New burner starting up as well :)
Just got a Longer Ray5 10w laser. This is one of the best videos on doing a materials test I have seen.
Very helpful. Thanks!
I am new to lasers and Lightburn and this video has been one of the most helpful ones as I get started!
Glad it was helpful! Keep playing with some test material and you’ll be having fun creating in no time!
Just came across your video. New to the world, and new to Lightburn. Thanks for the great, easy to understand tutorials
Glad to help!
Great video. Very straight forward in common sense terms anyone can understand.
Thank you!
aye man this video answered a lot of my questions teach and learning all the aspects of the laser and software can be tricky but you did great job. I'm new to engraving business I grabbed a nice 80w co2 starting off but I'm getting hang of it I'm more worried about learning before I mess my laser up because light burn has a lot going on if you are new to the program compared to others they are very basic but light burn is where its at if all steps are learned and taught from someone with your skill and knowledge.
Thanks! This video was more useful and clear to me than the official video 😅
Just bought a laser! I’ve been using a CNC for almost a year now. I’m really looking forward to opening the world of laser!! Thanks for the video! Awesome tips
Thanks, just starting lot to absorb
Great, detailed explanation. Thank you so much! I had forgotten that Lightburn has this build in now.
I just purchased a Jinsoku LC-60A 5.5W Laser Engraver Cutter with Air Assist System. This video really help me to understand how to use Lightburn to set up my material parameters and understand the limitations of my laser.
Thank you so much
I'm glad this could help you with both Lightburn and dialing in the settings for your laser!
Great video thanks! These laser values for speed/power are so helpful when learning.
Steve awesome video, you really clarified the material test process. Thanks again
Glad it was helpful!
Extremely useful, well presented and much appreciated. Thank you.
Glad you enjoyed it!
Thank you for taking the time to do this. Good job.
Glad it was helpful!
Great video. Thanks for making it easy so we could follow every steep. Really appreciated.
Glad it was helpful!
Awesome video! I am also brand new to lightburn and laser diode cutters. I didn't know that I could run a materials test generator from the tools tab. Thanks for breaking this down so I can understand what the materials test is used for and how to interpret it! I have been coming back to your channel quite a bit and learning a lot from your content!
I'm glad it was helpful for you. Doing test grids can really help dial in your settings. Thanks for watching!
Thank you! Very clear. I'm off to run the test right now.
Great discussion/demonstration/video production…subscribed
This was an incredible helpful video with info that's really easy to pick up. Fantastic work!
Glad it was helpful!
Why did it take me so long to find this video! This was by far the best video I have seen on this! Definitely earned my subscription..
Well I'm glad you found it! Thanks for the subscription. I'll try to keep more content like this coming!
Thank you @Vintauri I really appreciate the time you take explaining everything. I'm just bought a xtool d1 pro, Im hoping to do my photography into a something new. I wish I could understand it quicker but I'm learning thanks to you.
I'm glad you've found my videos useful! Engraving photos takes a little more playing and tweaking but you can get some very good results once you work out the process!
Excellent. Exactly the thing I was looking for. Thanks a bunch.
I’m glad it helped!
Thanks Dude! I am fairly new to LightBurn and am still finding interesting tools and this was EXTREMELY helpful. Thanks for putting it together for us. Nice job on the video.
Glad I could help!
Greetings from Christchurch, New Zealand..... Thanks for a Super Well Presented and Informative vidclip ..... Much Appreciated .... Best to You and Yours from ChCh, NZ
Much appreciated! I’d love to visit New Zealand someday!
Very good video, Thank you!
Thanks, I'm glad it was helpful!
Thanks for the education!
I'm glad it was helpful!
Ive been doing this wrong .I now have more testing to do. Great video
Glad it helped!
Wow.. I feels stupid now. I was creating these material test myself. This would have saved me so much time! Excellent share.
Useful, thanks! 👍
I'm new to lightburn it was very informative. Thanks
Glad it was helpful!
Vin, Great video, I'm new to lightburn and laser engraving. This sheds light (no pun intended) to what I have been doing. Most cases I have been at 100% and just changing speeds. Keeping a record of materials cut or engraved in a notebook. This will give me starting data. Your definitely right about no 2 materials or lasers cut the same. Keep it up 👍
I’m glad this is being helpful to people. Lightburn has a lot of features and can be overwhelming so I’m happy when I can share out some extra tips.
very good video, i bookmark this video so i can try it on my laser next month. thank you again for another grate and helpful video.
Glad it was helpful! Thanks for watching!
Thank you so much! I have just been doing my first burns and the text would burn perfectly but everything after that was way off. Turns out I was running the laser too fast. Got my first absolutely perfect spot on burn thanks some of the tips in this Video. Tomorrow I'll tweak a bit more to find the upper limit of speeds. It's scary just how smoothly learning this all is going- I'm knocking out one issue/skill after another- the 15 Years of Game Dev helps alot! I'm just waiting for a shoe to drop- thought maybe this was it but it was an easy fix- surely I'll run into some big challenge soon but I can't complain about how well learning this new skill has gone so far. Great vid- subbed/liked :D
Thank you, Im completely new to laser except my basic attempts at diode engraving.. been struggling to find something that can help me get a photo done but I think your vid has lifted my hopes the most 🤞🍀👍💙
I'm glad this video was helpful. Using the engraving test you'll be able to find the speed and power range needed to get the shades for the photo engravings. But you'll still need to play with your images to tweak the contrast to really get good photo engravings. I also prefer to change the image mode to Jarvis or Stucki for better results.
@@Vintauri honestly mate, I was bangin' my head against a wall.. I know it seems really simple now, doing a material test.. but I just didn't know what I didn't know 😁 I've just done my first photo and it's for the memorial garden of my partner's late father.. she's very happy with it.. thank you 💙
Great video, thanks! Could you clarify how to choose the best settings from the cut test grid? When several settings result in good cuts, should we prioritize the fastest speed that still offers a quality cut? Any tips on interpreting these results would be very helpful.
Great Video and explanation. I have a question. How do you make the scale fit the material? I have an anodized aluminum dog tag that is 1in x 2in.
very very helpful
Glad to hear that, thanks for watching!
Just getting started with light burn and laser, I will be doing models airplanes for Matney Models, thanks for the vid
RC Airplanes are why I got my first laser years ago. The diodes have really opened up the possibility for the average modeler to consider one for their shop. Glad you found this video helpful!
Very informative! I am new to the laser engraving world and I am really stoked about it. I am trying to learn as I go. I have an xTool D1 Pro 20w and I am not getting anywhere. Any and all help will help. Thanks again for your time.
Hi, thanks for the video. Do you have any video that explains what the color on the bottom of light burn are for. Thanks
Son good think's 👍
Thankyou
Hi there, thank you for this. Just a quick question after going in and setting these material cards, where do you save them to to load for different materials? or do they automatically save?
You can add them into a material library to reference and apply to your layers. This is useful if you have many machines that have different settings for similar materials. If using a single machine, you can apply the settings to your layers and then rename the layers to your material to reference. I generally use one or two machines and a couple similar materials so I just know them from my tests, the other random materials are often single runs where I do a quick test and then just keep my notes in a google sheet to reference later.
Thank you for the video. I just purchased a laser cutter/engraver, so I just subscribed to your channel. Question, using Lightburn, can you do both the cutting test and the engraving test on the same piece of wood/material?
Thank you for the subscription! You can do both tests on the same material but you'll need to run them individually using the tool in lightburn. There are other test files out there that you can import into lightburn that will run multiple tests in one job.
Excellent info video, just one thing do I alter the edit test material settings or leave as is
The only thing I would mess with in there is the number of passes if you are wanting to test higher speeds but more passes or on engraving if you want cross hatch or unidirectional scanning. Otherwise I leave it at default.
Great video thanks for the help, question fo you use air assist when engraving?
I try to run some air all the time to keep positive air flow away from the lens. I prefer a lower air setting when engraving if possible.
I have a Sculpfun s30 ultra 22w it has its own air supply and I am not sure if it is adjustable so I will set to on. Thank you for the quick reply@@Vintauri
Thank you. I will be getting my bolt next month and scared but thrilled try my hands to playing the settings. Do you have any tips for doing material testing with Bolt? What should I consider. I'm super newbie to laser. Thank you.
With the bolt you'll want to work in mm/sec as the Co2 are much faster. For cutting it will depend on your material, but on my 60w co2 and 1/8" plywood I average from 17-21mm/sec for cutting. Quarter inch plywood was closer to 10-12mm/sec. That might be some starting points. You'll want some scrap material and start running your tests. Just be ready to cut off the laser if you're moving too slow as you dial in your settings. If you see small flare ups while trying to cut either it's too slow or bad material.
Thanks for the great video Steve. My question is how does the speed and power setting in the "Edit Materials and Text" settings relate to the speed and power settings in the actual material test?
Lightburn will ignore the power and speed settings under the Material settings button, however for fill mode it will read the line interval, if you are just doing a power and speed test. For the text settings it will use those when marking the test labels, so you can change that to line, or fill and then also adjust the power and speed. This is a good thing to check as it might be too light or to dark based on the settings for the material you are testing.
@@Vintauri thanks. This is helpful. I made an enclosure based off of your video. I will post my build video soon and send you a link. 😁
@@MakerDan55 I look forward to seeing the enclosure build!
Can you tell how to set this up for a 20w diode laser?
It will depend on the material but for cutting 1/8 and 1/4” materials on a 20w I start in the range of 250mm/min up to 500mm/min in 50mm increments and then from 50% to 100% power in 10% increments.
Would the setup you did in the video be good for the OLM 2 Pro 5 watt laser?
You would want to back the speeds down a little bit from this one as it was done on a 10w laser. It will also depend on the material. Give it a shot and if you're not cutting through back off the speeds and if it's cutting too many out bump them up a bit.
Hi,
Thanks for the material test. Where does one set the material thickness for this test? Another question I have, is regarding the focal distance for my fixed focus laser. It was supplied with a 20mm setting piece. When setting the distance to the laser, do you set the spacer to the body of the laser or to the laser lens?
You do not need to enter the thickness of the material. The laser only cares about power and speed. In your notes or library you'll want to add the information once you identify the proper settings for that material. As for the focus tool, most lasers with a spacer tool measure from the bottom of the module, but hopefully there is a manual for your specific laser to clarify that.
@@Vintauri thank you for taking the time to answer my questions.
Everytime I run material test ..change materials to fill..the SPD/power I set in there over rides my grid setup..
Hello. Thanks for your help. I was wondering, how do I set the Interval? I see yours is at .100 where mine is .04?
The .04 vs .1 is likely the difference of being set in MM vs Inches. You can change the interval if you change the material settings to fill, but in the line mode it will not make a difference.
Thank you.@@Vintauri
should i be trying to cut 5mm with my d1pro 10w in 1 pass? or using multiple passes. i recently started learning lightburn and since the speed and power settings are different from xcs its making it difficult to get nice clean perfect cuts.
Depending on the material you may want to switch to multiple passes. I don’t like to have my lasers cutting at less than 100mm/min as it tends to char more from the heat while staying in one place for too long. So I’ll bump the speed up and add passes. It won’t take much longer assuming you almost double the movement speed while adding the extra pass.
Hi,
Just maybe a silly question. How do you differentiate between when you're just burning a line and when you want the laser to actually cut through the material? There are some projects when you will burn an image followed by cutting it out.
You would assign different layers in Lightburn for the various operations. The engraving item would be on one layer set to fill and then configured with the proper speed and power, then the cut item would be set to line with it's own power and speed settings.
@@Vintauri thanks for the confirmation 👍
Can one easily store those settings to the LightBurn Library?
There is no automatic way to pull them into the library, but it's a good idea to save your settings to a lightburn library and back it up for quick reference as you start working with more materials!
In edit material setting when you click on the material settings button what should the speed be while cutting and engraving
That setting should not matter and I usually just have it set to default. You may want to change the Text settings on the blue layer.
@@Vintauri ty
My Latitool F50 cuts/engraves seemingly random straight lines, perhaps about 5mm each when performing material tests.... What am I doing wrong?
Do you have any idea how I can use a Chromebook with Lennox with a P7 atomstack
Just bought a Ikier 24. This is my first laser Where would i start the settings? Probably should have gotten something else since it was my first laser i seems not to be a lot of information out there yet.
I would run a material test starting at 250mm/min up to about 500mm/min and from 50-100% power. Try that on both 1/8” and 1/4” material and adjust from there.
Vintauri, Do you save these to your Material Settings so that you have them if you buy material from different suppliers?
It depends on if I’m planning on using that laser for a while. I do keep the cards handy for a while and if I start using the material and that machine a lot I’ll set them up in the material settings library.
Great video. Everytime I run a preview of my material test with your settings, I get cut distance 2561 mm, rapid moves 4430, and total time estimated 1:27:29. What am I doing wrong for the time estimate to be so long? TIA
Same here. I use same settings and my time is way off.
How do you know when my laser is on its last leg? I am having a hard time cutting all the way thru. I have run many grids now to see if I could come up with a correct power and speed but it still does not cut all the way like it used to. I have a Adamstack A5 M50 and have been spending quite a lot of time on it to learn which makes me think that maybe it is wearing down. What do you think?
The first thing I would check is the cover lens on the laser. If you have an air assist cone, remove that and see if there is residue on the cover lens. If there is, clean it with some isopropyl alcohol. It may also be damaged or cracked. If so, you would need to replace that part.
Great video, how do you set the interval? I saw yours was at .1 and mine is showing.004
Disregard, found it now.
I'm having the same problem and haven't found solution
Can you run a test on a leatherette patch? 3inches wide by 2 inches tall? Seems small but…just curious
I just recently got an Ortur laser master 3. I set up my materials test with the same parameters as your for the cut. It only took mine 1 min and 8 seconds and nothing was cut. What did I do wrong?
Double check that you are set up in MM/Min and not MM/Sec. Lightburn defaults to MM/Sec so you can either change that or divide the speeds by 60.
Do I just double the speeds for my 20W diode laser and keep everything else the same?
You could try that but you don’t normally get double the power from going 10w to 20w. I would go around 150% of the speeds and try that.
Im having such a hard time doing such a simple test like that. With the settings you provided I did two test one with your settings which everything came out really light. Then the other with factory settings but sopes max 900. I have the s30
Check to see that your lightburn settings are set to mm/min if you are duplicating my settings. If they are set to mm/sec it will run much faster and be lighter. You can stay in mm/sec but divide the speeds by 60 to get a starting point.
Heya, i see you're still responding - im brand new at this but is it normal for a 10x10 sample test piece of plywood take over an hour for fill engraving or am i doing something wrong?
The engraving tests can take a while and depending on the speeds and line per inch that are set up I could see it pushing an hour.
The basic idea sounds great and using a diode laser with its very low power and different wavelenght to the CO2 machine, that I see you have in the background, it should be easy to do grayscale engraving on organic materials. However, what this engraving matrix shows is exacty the opposite. If you take a blowlamp to a piece of wood, you can change the SURFACE colour from very light brown to almost black WITHOUT burning through the wood, just by varying the exposure time (speed of power over the surface). The problem I see here is that as you vary the power and speed you are changing the DEPTH of "burn" to get coloiur. The only way you are achieving almost black is to barbeque the wood with a deep CUT and producing lots of fumes.. That's why I look at this matrix and question its real value.. There is no criticism of your video, you have done great job of explaining how to program it and use the tool that Lightburn has provided. I underrstang how the PWM control system works for a diode laser in that there is no actual power control available, your laser is always delivering 10 watts whenever you switch it on. The only way you can control the burn is by changing the exposure time via the PWM duty cycle. . I look at the blowlamp example I used earlier as the goal for this matrix and question if power and speed are the correct parameters to be using for engraving. Maybe you can achieve that SURFACE colour change by fixing a %power and making the matrix by varying speed and line spacing?
I can see that you will be able to select a set of parameters from this matrix to do proper 3D engraving rather than grayscale images. I would select a speed of 3000mm/min with a min power of 10% and a max power of 60% you will need to repeat the program at least 10 times (or more) but you should finish up with a nice 3D image.There are lots os special bitmap files available to experiment with. Just Googe images of "3D grayscale CNC bitmaps" This will set you off onto all sorts of side trails to 100's of images you can use. The ones you want are the weird looking waxy white images.
Good luck
You can get darker colors when using multiple passes with low power. Rembert, this are single pass tests shown.
I just got my Sculpfun S30 and used the test mode but when it finished the print everything was backwords. I can hold it to a mirror every thing looks great. Need help on this.
Double check where you have your origin set up for you laser within lighburn device settings. It should be the front left, if it's not there it could end up reversing the file.
@Vintauri I double checked and note there were 4 bubbles and it was on bottom left. I changed it to top right and tested. It works perfectly. Thanks tons.
Opps. Top left bubble.
Ciao ho un problema... sto facendo il test ma in anteprima e poi nel materiale mi scrive lettere strane. Ho provato a chiuedere e riaprire Lightburn ma niente. Hai un'idea? Grazie Uso LM3
I can't seem to change the number of passes. I clicked save but it reverts back to "1".
when i use plywood i get a lot of burn and a higher kerf. when i lower my power i need like 10 turns to cut true plywood. when i use MDF i do not have that problem. also with a lot of burn, it's hard to keep ure project clean. i got all black spots from the burn on my hands. I got a 10W creality. can u help me with this problem?
Are you running an air assist on the Creality and do you have the work elevated so that there is airflow underneath? Both of those are the biggest ways to get cleaner cuts. Other than that double check that the focus is set right.
@@Vintauri check on all of these. I use the tool for the focus. Elevated and air assist from the manufature..
So one thing I noticed that nobody covers and I have asked in multiple places and never get a straight answer. How do the power and speed settings under Material Settings effect the test? You enter your minimum and max power and speed in the original Material Test window that opens, so clicking on the Material Settings tab and changing power and speed accomplishes exactly what within the test?
I have not seen the min and max power settings have an effect on the output of these tests. What I do look at there is the overscan and line interval when doing an engrave test as well as number of passes on a cut test.
@@Vintauri thanks. LB support finally got back to me and confirmed that the software will ignore the speed and power settings in the material settings here. All the other settings can be changed and will take effect, just the speed and power are ignored.
It's useful but I'll note that at the faster speeds set, for small test squares, the laser head never reaches full speed so the speed vs power is not accurate. I recently got a 65 wattCO2 laser and it's around 50 times faster than my Ortur LM3
This is true, and enabling over-scanning will help some with reaching those speeds if you have the extra space in your laser to allow that acceleration and deceleration movements. The top speeds advertised on the newer diode lasers are unrealistic in practicality.
Hi Steve, you lost me in the 1st couple minutes, I was following along step by step but, how did you change the random speeds to increase by 25? Thanks
You'll need to change the min and max speed settings to be 200 apart and then change the steps to 9. That should give you a range that goes up by increments of 25. On the right side of the tool, set your count to 9, Param to speed, Min to say 200, Max to 400, height can stay at 5mm and Y center wherever you need it. Hopefully that gets you there.
Haha, never mind, I didn't see you change from 8 to 9 rows in the speed column
What type of laser are you using to have a max speed of 9000 mm/m? I have a Fox Alien Masuter Pro with an 80w Laser Tree laser. The Masuter Pro is only rated at a max of 2200 mm/m, Not sure if I should be calculating it differently running a laser module instead of a router boring through wood, Nice video.
Many of the newer dedicated diode lasers are set up to run much faster. Some even claim speeds above 50,000mm/min although with the size of the working area, I doubt they ever reach those speeds. There are no 80w output diode laser modules at this time, so I think the 80w you are seeing for your module must be the input power instead of the optical output power. I believe the largest output that Laser Tree has at this time is 40w optical. So you’ll want to check on that first to see if you can get more speed out of it. The other limiting factor is how quickly your machine can accelerate and maintain higher speeds. Typically cnc machines are built for torque and not speed to move the spindle head through material.
Hey, I can't continue anymore, I can't save it because there is no save to g-code anywhere, I can only start it with my computer on my lazer cutter, but I don't know how that works with the cable?
Unfortunately there is no export to gcode option in this tool. If you are connected to your laser via USB, then you can run the file using the start button in the tool. I'd recommend using the frame function first to ensure it will run where you want it to and adjust you x and y center from there.
Hello Steve, I just discovered your RUclips page and I found myself watching you videos. They are very educating and Im like wow I didn't know you can do that or wow will you look at that. I have a XTool D1 Pro 20 watt laser for about a year now I have been mostly following David (Clack Shack videos) He is very knowledgeable, however he moves to fast for me, I am there every Sunday watching you and Davids podcast. Can you tell me, if I had a question for you where would I sent it for you to receive? Roy A Bettano ( Roy's Custom Creations.)
Thanks for watching the videos! You can either hit me up via my facebook page facebook.com/VintaurisWorkshop or send an email using the contact option on RUclips or my website www.vintauri.com
Where do you input the material thickness ?? did I miss it ??
You do not input the thickness into Lightburn as it does not need it. It just needs speed and power for the operation. I record the information afterwards including the thickness to reference later.
@@Vintauri Ah ok thanks I got my laser yesterday so am trying to understand as much as I can before my first cut
if i have 33w what i should do
You'll want to adjust your numbers a bit to be faster but it will also depend on the material. Run some cut tests at 200mm/min up to 500mm/min for cutting and adjust from there.
Why doesn’t my test show the numbers? Mine just did the squares but with no info?
Check the settings under the "Edit Text Settings" button and you might need to lower the speed or increase the power there to get the text to show up on your engraving.
@@Vintaurifigured it out. Thank you. I just started my engraving journey a few days ago and have already learned so much. Thanks man!!
My lightburn doesnt have this
Do you have a recent version? It’s been in there for a while.
This unfortunate didn’t work on my laser I have a atomstack but it’s only 5w
You should still be able to use this method to find your settings. You can add passes to the line as well as as units speed and power. I’ve used this method with all my diode laser tests including 5w models. The 5w won’t cut fast but they will eventually get through 1-3mm material in most cases.
I copied everything and my test burn burned out all the squares. lol Not sure what happened.
Sounds like your speeds were too low. Bump up that range and try running it again. Every laser is different.
@@Vintauri what laser did you use in the video?
@@wooly196211 I used the Jiccoda L1 10w laser during this video. amzn.to/3wnZdOW
@@Vintauri So I'm guessing my xtool D1 pro is not going to produce the same results as your video while also using a 10w. Still confusing.
@@wooly196211 Not all lasers are equal even if they are both rated at 10w. The material also makes a huge difference. Two different types of 1/4" plywood can be the difference between cutting through and just smoldering. You should be able to find some settings that will work for your laser, just keep adjusting the speeds until you find it.
How many weed one guy can consume😮😊😊😊😊