RDWorks Learning Lab 13 rotary glass engraving
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- Опубликовано: 15 сен 2024
- If you own a Chinese laser cutter this little series of videos about me learning how to use the free software provided, may solve the problem of trying to learn from a virtually unreadable manual.
I am nothing to do with RD Works, I am not an instructor and I am no expert. This series will document the essential bits of many hours of trial and error
I am half way through your RDWorks videos and my head hurts from all the knowledge you have implanted in it. THANK YOU! I have learned more in the last two hours than I have in 3 weeks of struggling on my own. Excellent work! I will be up all night watching the rest. :)
+PlaneDeb
Thanks for your kind words I'm glad it's doing a better job than the manual. When I first encountered RDWorks I thought it was a piece of rubbish software,free with the machine for a reason. However, as I have started to untangle it's intricacies I am gaining great respect for it. As a piece of drawing software it's terrible but as a piece of interface software allowing you to take all sorts of drawing formats and convert them into machine-readable files, it's a little miracle. I'm still exploring the outer reaches but as with most utility software, if you learn about 20% that's all you will need to deal with most things. This software was obviously designed to work with many types of machine and so there are bits that don't even apply to my machine....the problem is which bits????
Don't lose too much sleep over my videos, I'm sure there's a party out there calling you,,,that's a much better reason to sacrifice sleep!!
I've begun experimenting with engraving pint glasses on my engraver. One bit of advice I've gotten is to coat the surface before engraving with some liquid dish washing soap. I believe this is to result in a smoother, safer surface. Not sure what the mechanism is. Perhaps just that when you wash off the soap it will take any shards with it? Perhaps it keeps the glass from shattering in microscopic pieces? Not sure, but I figured I'd pass that along. BTW, the suggestion came from the Epilog laser company.
In the past I have trie glass engraving dry because all the other methods(bits of wet kitchen towel, masking tape etc) seemed to give no improvement. The mechanism of engraving glass is one of heat stress cracking. Glass is a very poor conductor of heat so when you apply a pin prick of intense heat, that minute area expands rapidly and cracks away from the body of glass underneath. I have been advised by several correspondents that smearing neat washing up liquid works well but even understanding the engraving mechanism does not help explain how this method makes things better. I have not tried it yet but in one of my future sessions I'll get round to that and all the different crazy ideas I have been sent to see what really works, if any do. The microscopic shards are quite deadly so I always wash them off in soapy water and rub them well with a scouring pad.
Thanks for wanting to share that info because I am getting a real sense of community from my correspondents/contributors. I may be demonstrating what I'm learning but the key word here is learning. I still have a long way to go.
Best regards
Russ
Hello Russ thanks for all you're time spent teaching us what these machines can do, I've came across a different method for using the rotary table, after thinking a simpler way to engrave glass in theory. Is it possible to start with a rectangle that has the same length and width as the engraving area (taken from the diameter and high of the glass or cup) and pasting the bitmap and lettering in that same area. I would like to hear you're comments kind regards!
+Carlos Fainsod
Hi Carlos
Take a cylinder with 100mm circumference. I think you are asking if I measure half way round the cylinder (50mm) and along the cylinder 50mm then I have a flattened 50mmx50mm square. Can I now fit my graphic into that square and expect it to engrave correctly? Sadly, no.
The machine is set-up to give the correct distance in Y when in a FLAT plane. ie if you design and program a 50mm square and cut or engrave that on a normal flat surface you will expect (and get) a 50mm square result. I will now assume you have a roller or wheel system that drives on the circumference of your cup/cylinder. When you now try and engrave your square that onto a cylinder, lets assume it has a 100mm circumference (not diameter) will it fit on one half of the cylinder? ONLY if the gearing ratio on your rotary device makes the circumference of the DRIVE rollers move 50mm. You have removed the Y axis and instead plugged in your rotary device. The machine is not aware of this change and still outputs 50mm worth of steps. The chance of your rotary device being geared 1:1 is NIL. So you will have to apply a shrink or expand factor to one axis of your square to make it engrave on 50mm of circumference. It gets a bit more complicated because you have to rotate your picture through 90 degrees for rotary engraving. You can either apply this factor to the X axis before rotation or to the Y axis after rotation.
The good news is that you only have to work out this gearing factor ONCE and write it down for use every time you want to shrink/expand your graphic. It will be the SAME % no mater what diameter you are engraving. onto.
Hope this make s sense. It gets a bit more difficult when you are engraving on tapered objects because the top and bottom have different circumferences. Oops, Which one is going to drive?
If you need more help just message me and I will try to explain further. Several people have struggled with this concept but eventually become fully comfortable.
Best regards
Russ
Unfortunately.. with the chuck style rotary - this idoesnt work.. every diameter results in a different ratio to adjust the y-axis scaling.. ive done some test on 3 different tube diameters, and they all result in a different percentage... :(
a 80mm tube of approx 250mm circumference, ended up cutting at 1045mm (for a line equal to the length of the circumference) - so i had to reduce the y-axis to 24% of the original size...
for the 60mm tube (188mm circumference) - it cut to 570mm.. and this was a 33% of original size reduction...
and a 40mm tuve (135mm circumference) cut to 305mm, and was a 44% of original size reduction...
it mostly looks like its linear... but i cant work out a correlation of diamererpercentage to work out a consistent way of working it out based on X diameter object... :(
Hi Carlos
You are correct that my calibration method ONLY works for the ROLLER or WHEEL system and not for the Chuck system. However in some ways it's easier for you because if you go to the OUTPUT tab (top right) depending on which issue RDWorks you are running you will find a tick box for enabling proper rotary engraving which is what you are trying to do. You may have to enable it in the USER settings before you can use it. I have to apologise for not being able to help you more because I have never needed to use it. However, I stronly advise that you join a recently formed forum for owners of Chinese Laser Cutting machines. its at www.rdworkslab.com. There is a really good bunch of guys there and several will have your type of rotary system and be able to explain how RDWorks needs configuring so that it's easy to use.There is an entry question to make sure you are a person rather than a computer. The answer is russ. Definitely worth a visit to pose your question there.
Best regards
Russ
I also use laser Tape from Rayzist.....Joe
I thought I'd offer some advise on how the actual Rotary Engraving function calculates. If you use the vendor password that was previously communicated in the video series you can look at what the Y-Axis micronmeter steps are (um as it is listed). Click on the radio button for the Y-Axis and look at the value (it's probably something like 11.818... or around there). If I knew how to post an UR, I'd paste the formula/spreadsheet used.
+NFO Sec
Thanks for your feedback and you are absolutely correct about accessing the Vendor Settings Section and altering the Y step value, as one way to get the correct scaling for the rotary axis BUT it means that you could be sending people with little experience or who have no conceptual knowledge of what a stepper motor is, into a protected area where they could unknowingly mess up the factory settings of their machine. Would they remember (or even realise) to go back into the vendor settings to reset it to 11,818 (if they had even bothered to note this value) when they plug their normal Y axis in? The 3 jaw chuck rotary system is different in that you can tick the rotary box when programming and it allows you to specify your work diameter. I do not have such a rotary device so I have not tested it , but I assume that this temporarily adds a further scaling factor to the Y axis to correct for different diameters. With the circumferential roller system (as in the video) you only need to calibrate the relationship between Y steps and roller circumference ONCE and it will never change regardless of your work diameter.This means you can make just one TEMPORARY Y axis % scaling adjustment when you draw your rotary program and it will have no effect when you go back to normal Y axis use. That's my reason for showing people the simple and safe way (no accessing Vendor Settings) of calibrating their rotary device. This method will no not work for a 3 jaw chuck system but the programming software takes this into account with a simple tick box so that again you do not need to enter the Vendor Settings protected area.
The one thing I have learned as I have progressed through this video series, is that age range of users is from 14 to 85 and their technical ability is tremendously varied. I have tried to be inclusive to all without offending the technically able.
+SarbarMultimedia I apologize, my message wasn't very clear.
Basically, what I did is went to the vendor settings, clicked on the Y axis radio button, and copied the set length (um) value. In my case it was 11.818 I then created a simple spreadsheet that did the following:
Calculated Pi (3.14..... times 1000 (scaling factor) times the piece diameter (let's say 80mm) and divided it by the Y-axis set length (11.81829). This will give you the almost perfect circle pulse value for the diameter of the piece/objects you laser engrave. In the case above, the result was 21266.49247. So, (3.1415926 * 1000 * 80) / 11.818 = circle pulse of 21266.49246 When you look at the object's parameters (sizing) you will see in the preview that this matches perfectly or within 100th of the object size. This can be tested using your method (which was remarkably awesome by the way).
I wouldn't advocate changing the vendor settings because it's easy to mess up. Try it, you might be pleasantly surprised!
+SarbarMultimedia. I agree, simple is better, but once you have the value of the Y precision you can easily calculate the circle pulse by only entering in a diameter thereafter. My hats off to you in your diligence and educating of others.
Does it look like your X-axis was losing steps? The border of the etched picture seems to drift skewing the rectangular shape it should be. Perhaps the 250mm/s speed was too fast to overcome the back and forth changing of motion.
Great video series and thanks for sharing all your knowledge and experience along the way.
You are very observant and very correct. I must remind you that these are not tutorials but a record of my learning and exploration journey. As an initial exploration it worked well but as with many of my first attempt at things they are not perfect and I am always happy to record and show my mistakes as well as my successes. In this case I did learn more when I moved on to glass objects. The effect was even more exaggerated. I fixed it by adding a thin rubber band to the glass object to prevent slippage in X and Y. I have also heard of people using that non-slip shelf matting to cover their rollers
Too fast? Some say no .... "hit glass fast and hard". After my recent venture into dots I an pretty convinced that running slowly with a measured amount of power will produce crisper results but I have yet to prove that on glass. Glass and stone/granite have their own unique etching mechanism where a pin prick of heat locally heats a micro spot of glass/stone causing it to rapidly expand. These materials are poor conductors of heat so the base material cannot expand at the smme rate so casing a stress failure and a small heated shard of material cracks away. That means that you do not produce a clean dot but something like a stone chip on your car wind screen. It will be fin to find the right sort of settings for that.
Thanks for the comment
Russ
My program is working and my rotary is turning...... I'm trying a beer bottle and my laser doesn't seem to want to etch it. I'm running a higher power, and even played with some elevaton.........any ideas ?? Thanks in advance
Hi
All glass (especially cheap bottle glass) will damage with a CO2 laser beam if there is sufficient light INTENSITY. That light intensity is achieved by a combination of 4 things
1) The quality of your laser beam. The more power, the sharper and more intense your beam will become.. Remember INTENSITY is the key factor. You can have a powerful laser tube but if it has a poor quality intensity distribution within the beam then it will be like writing with a VERY blunt pencil. I would check the quality of your beam with a simple mode burn test as per this video for my 70 watt tube. The sharp point in the burn indicates very high CENTRAL intensity.
ruclips.net/video/R6Wqn5-HMzM/видео.html.
2) The beam intensity is then amplified by a lens.. Different lens focal lengths produce different amplification factors. A typical 2" focal length lens of any quality should be fine for glass engraving
3)Setting the focal point to its optimum (sharpest) position
4)Allowing sufficient exposure time. Every material has its own (and different) damage threshold. Imagine using a can of spray paint. If you move the can very slowly then you will apply lots of paint in one spot and it will blob or run. Move the can VERY fast and there will be hardly any paint in the surface. This is an exact analogy for your laser beam, so if you move at the wrong speed and do not have enough INTENSITY in your beam then you will not reach the damage threshold for the glass..
My suspicion is that you have a badly performing tube so the mode burn is a vital test to tell you that
Best wishes
Russ
Hello there! I've been using your tutorials for the past week now trying to get a grip on this Laser Engraver form China! Let me first say your tutorials have been spot on! Thank you for spending the time to help guys like me out who aren't as savvy. I am however having a serious issue with my machine that keeps moving the x axis over to the opposite side of the board, when inputting a BitMap or just a simple box into the Ufile, it then gives me an error message that reads " XY axis slop" or "Error not enough space", however I've checked the parameters in which you taught how to setup the table and laser head position, yet, it still goes to the top right hand corner of the bed. I double checked the 'X axis mirror' off as supposed to. Have you experienced this issue where the machine is defaulting to the wrong side of the bed?
Hi Brooks
When you first switch your machine on where does it travel to ? is it the back left or back right corner. Not all machines are set the same as mine. Pehaps a look at this video will help
ruclips.net/video/CWZvQXxbR_E/видео.html Basically If I understand you correctly your machine runs to back right at startup. That means that you need you mirror X and mirror Y both ticked;. Your head position can be set to top right or top left. To save confusion leave it at one or the other position so that you can always visualize where it should be when you set your origin with the machine button. If any part of your drawing is outside you are trying to cut or engrave is beyond the defined size of your machine bed, you will get the error message Have you set the table size as per video
ruclips.net/video/fLSI-z-TdNQ/видео.html
Hope this helps to remove some of the confusion. If you are still suffering just shout out again
Best regards
Russ
The Laser Engraving Glass link. www.engraversjournal.com/article.php/2360/index.html
my machine makes my graphic circle all the way around the glass. how can i fix this problem? my graphic is not that big for it to do that.
Hi Hayden
We may be able to resove but it will be one question at a time.. What sort of rotary are you running? Is it a roller/wheel type or a 3 jaw chuck type?
Best regards
Russ
Thanks for the response. It's a rotary with a roller wheel. Has two double wheels on both sides of the rotary that the glass sits on.
Hi Hayden
The rotary device you are using is different to the one I am using . Yours has BIG wheels whereas mine has little rollers. However the basic operating principle is the same. To make your rotary work you have to unplug the Y axis and plug the rotary there instead. The machine does not know that you have swapped systems and for example one revolution of the stepper motor may have moved the Y axis 1mm, whereas now with a different system one revolution of the stepper motor may be operating your rubber drive wheel via a 10:1 ratio drive. In other words the rubber gear wheel will rotate once for every 10 revolutions of your stepper. If your rubber drive wheel is for example 50.8mm diameter (2") then its circumference will be 79.8mm. So that means one rev of the stepper will drive the rubber wheel 1/10th rev ie 7.98mm per stepper rev. That's 8 time more than before so the Y axis capaility has increased by a factor of 8 and that's why your rotary is running all round the glass. If you try to engrave a 1" square it will be 1" wide in X but 8" in Y
Now you have two options to deal with this issue.
One is demonstrated in the following Boss laser video
ruclips.net/video/xN1bp_puCf8/видео.html. This method has two small drawbacks. First you MUST have your pc connected to the machine. Although they mention two step settings , those are to suit devices they supply with their machine. You may have to experiment with other values to get yours correct. Secondly you MUST remeber to disable the user settings away from a rotary device when you replug the machine for normal use.
The second involves using a scaling factor to distort your drawing so that it finishes up at the correct size. The advantage of this is that you do not have to mess with the stepper calibration, you just disort ant rotary picture. That method is described in
ruclips.net/video/sIlXSZhgbe4/видео.html
Hope something here helps
Best regards
Russ