RDWorks Learning Lab 76 Laser Etched Tshirt Logo
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 30 авг 2016
- 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 
Наука
Loving your helpful videos, Russ! This one made me chuckle.
I really appreciate your video. Beautiful work!
The END! :D Haha you had me laughing out loud. That was awesome!
Lmfao dude props for actually wearing the messed up shirt afterwards. I doubled over almost haha
Russ,
thank you for showing the video!
Nice idea to laser clothing.
It would be very interesting to see the result of an "engraving" mode run, because the cutting mode sums up the energy where lines are very close or crossing, which the engraving mode doesn't.
So it will result in an overall uniform treatment of the fabric.
Lothar
Yes !!!! So funny at the end !
A lot of humour , bravo !!!
Love it !
you have a new follower here!! brilliant video and priceless tips
Hi Pablo
This was much more of a fun thing. No real purpose for it but it did allow me to check out a few darker corners and demonstrate them in a non-serious way Thanks for your support.
Best regards
Russ
hahaha, Mate I enjoyed that clip! the dance at the end sold it for me. I'm looking at picking up one of these chinese laser cutters and this was helpful. Thanks for posting this up!
Hi
Perhaps things look a bit better upside down!!! That was no dance, just a series of uncoordinated spasms. My wife will tell you that I dance like a brick, so I'm just a wall flower at parties as that saves embarrassment all round.
Good luck with your new venture and I hope you will avoid some of the stupid mistakes I have made in my first year. Get your ammeter on order, apart from me, it's the best laser friend you can have.
All best wishes
Russ
hahaha! Hey my Mrs laughs at my dancing as well! I did just catch one of your clips where you put the amp meter under the water temp display. It was on my mental list to research that.
I was on my way to asking you a question but I think one of your previous clips answered it for me. I was wanting to see how much really fine detail can be achieved with these chinese cnc lasers.
I just watched a clip from Epilogue (expensive is an understatement) showing a seriously intricate lattice design cut in paper and wanted to know how these less expensive machines compare.
Your wife's birthday cards were lovely and they are close to what Epilogue were displaying.
I suspect they would be similar? Any thoughts on the topic?
Thank you for posting these clips up Russ! I'm finding them extremely helpful.
Kind regards,
Ben
Hi Ben
As an engineering designer, paper has never been on my radar as a useful material. However, I have to admit to falling in love with card making. I was recently commissioned by my sister to make some bespoke cards to send to fellow members of her chapter this coming Xmas. She belongs to a world-wide ladies society called the Red Hatters. She wanted to know exactly how I went about making cards so I put a little private video together so she could see how her cards were made. It may interest you.
ruclips.net/video/PpummLQCbEs/видео.html
I thinks tha once you have tweaked one of these machines to work well, it will match an Epilogue in many areas. It may not be as well engineered or as durable but certainly represents the most fun for the $ that you can buy.
Best regards
Russ
Keep up the great work..Thanks Russ
oh my goodness....I started the video and wanted to take a sneak peek at the end to see the final result...you know, kinda like reading the last page in a book....anyhow, oh my goodness...we are laughing our tails off...that's great. I'll watch the whole video now because I love what it did on the back of the shirt.
Just a thought .Do you think if the fabric was damp you would get a better outcome?
You make a heck of a t-shirt model. LOL Great to know that this is possible though. Thanks
Great job...wear that shirt when you apply for a position with "Dancing with the Stars"
nice work!
Thanks for sharing... I was wondering what it would look like
you should apply a small amount of water vapor to the Tshirt fabric
Having completed related scorching, the best results are when the laser is quite a bit out of focus. This eliminates vaporizing of the material and heats a larger area enabling the scorch marking. Believe it or not, the two items engraved were an apple pie crust for an event, and toast. You can use a laser to engrave Elvis toast very well.
Hi
This was very much a fun taskfor a friend and must not be taken too seriously. With what I know now, if I was repeating the exercise I would probably use dot mode and an out of focus 1.5" lens
ruclips.net/video/m4Hh-8-9Tio/видео.html 43:20 toast
ruclips.net/video/R_0rczM5FDM/видео.html First 2 minutes for apple pie equivalent
Best wishes
Russ
Would you be able to try an engraved type picture? maybe also try on leather or denim?
you should try an image on denim jeans you can get the grey scale effect on those semi well
Hello Russ. You talked about a beam that’s not properly formed at a certain % in this video. I wanna know more about that. Do you have a video of that being explained?
All laser beams are non-uniform in that they have a more intense central core within the beam . That variable intensity ideally will be a Gaussian distribution. Imagine a small bucket of damp sand tipped onto the ground. It will form a small shallow mound a few inches tall. Imagine that to be the "blunt" shape of your beam at 10% power. Now carefully pour another bucket of sand on top and the mound not only gets taller, it becomes more pointed (sharper). That is how your beam changes shape as you increase the power to 20%. As you increase the %power your beam changes shape becoming more and more pointed. In reality, this sharpness is an increase light INTENSITY within the beam. It is light intensity that defines the RATE at which the beam does damage Thus more power= more damage but the type of damage changes as you change power. It's the same idea as drawing with a blunt soft lead pencil or a sharp hard lead pencil. . That is what I mean by not properly formed. You can achieve the same sort of "blunting" effect by setting the beam out of focus.
Best wishes
Russ
That clear things up. Thanks for your answer. Have a nice day.
What do you think would happen if you sprayed a little bit of water from a spray bottle onto the shirt?
That was how the wife stopped scorching my shirts....I bought her a decent steam iron. This was a light hearted challenge rather than a real use for a laser machine. Printing is so much quicker, predictable and durable. It was good fun. Cant be serious all of the time!!!
Best wishes
Russ
Amazing :-)
Hello! hope you are well. I have a machine similar to the one that appears in your video, I have already made many laser engravings with it, but I still can not handle it very well. My machine only moves the head of the laser from right to left (X / Y) but I would like to be able to make the head of my laser machine move freely as seen in your video. Could you explain me how to do that please?
Hi
I am a bit confused about your problem
If your head only moves ACROSS the machine (the X axis) and not BACK and FORWARD (the Y axis) how have you been able to engrave. Can you cut a square with your machine? I need to understand your problem before I can offer a solution.
Best wishes
Russ
No, no, no! The machine works perfect in X and Y axis. It make perfect engravings, I only need to know what do I have to do make the laser head work free like the video you upload. I mean circle by circle not the whole image at at same time. Did I explain myself better? Sorry for my lack of english
OK, I think I understand now what your question is.
Normal engraving (scan mode) runs left and right across the machine. This is not SCAN. This is CUT mode. If you run with very low power at high speed and put your work maybe 5mm lower than proper focus, you will be able to SCORCH rather than burn through the material. BUT to do cutting (or drawing , as I am doing here) you will need a VECTOR file. A BMP file will only engrave.
Hope this answers your question
Best wishes
Russ
Ohhh! Now I understand.... Thank you very much!
Thunder Lasers offer an attachment that is intended for high resolution super fine etching.
They also boast improved 3d etching.
This wouldn't apply to this video of course.
But have you considered looking into this?
Yes, I have examined their claims and to be honest they don't make logical reading.
Type Laser dot Size Focal Distance Main Function
Standard Laser Head 0.0039″(0.099mm) 5.0mm~6.5mm Cutting material less than 10mm, Engraving photos within 500DPI
High Resolution Head 0.0020"(0.050mm) 3.0mm~4.0mm Engraving photos up to 1000DPI, cutting material less than 1mm
4″ Laser Head 0.0078″(0.198mm) 9.0mm~11mm Cutting material more than 10 mm
A better source for data on lenses is here
www.parallax-tech.com/faq.htm
For example my machine claims to have a resolution of 4500DPI. and has a 1.5" focal length lens with a theoretical spot size of 0.003". That means I could technically burn 333 dots per inch.
Their "standard" laser head with a 0.004" spot is in fact a 2" focal length lens which can only do 250 spots per inch.
Their so-called High Resolution head is in reality a 1" focal length lens which has a spot size of 0.002". That means it can theoretically produce 500 spots per inch. So how that can be used to get to 1000DPI is puzzling....maybe by overlapping the dots? How it can help with 3D engraving is a real mystery because as the focal length gets shorter the depth of field gets dramatically shorter. This means that the deeper you try to cut the more out of focus your beam will get and the energy density (cutting ability) will drop off very quickly. This is exactly the opposite of what you need for 3D engraving , so I am very sceptical about all their claims.
I apologize for being so cynical but I have learned the hard way that you need to read Chinese specifications with a degree of mistrust
Best regards
Russ
Just a thought ... :)
I found it notable as they sell it as an extra on their machines on eBay.
Is the focal length longer perhaps?
I just got my 100w laser but can't seem to get corel draw and rdcam V8 to work together. What is the secret?
Hi Ben
I'm sorry I'm no lover of Coreldraw, I have a home and student version that I keep trying to break into but every simple thing I try to do is made so complex in relation to the cad program I am used to using, I just give up and go back to the simple way. . I have never tried to integrate them but I do believe that when you install RDWorks there is an option page that allows it to integrate with RDworks.. But hey, dont listen to me. there is an open and friendly group of RDWorks minded people at
facebook.com/groups/900528680076062/
Many folks have already done this and I'm sure you will get the help you need there.
Best wishes
Russ
I think a good voltage stabilizer should be tried with the input power of the machine.
Also min and max power should be same when machine is working under 25% of power
I am puzzled about your 25% suggestion You don't indicate if this is your experience for cutting or engraving and for what power tube because all have different characteristics. I can can say with certainty (because my videos are there to be seen) that when you are engraving you have to tick the Output Direct option to enact the max/min power feature. It was designed specifically for varying the power on the fly to achieve 3D engraving. The min% = white level 255 and the max% = black level 255. If that switch is not on during engraving then the min power will be ignored and it matters not what the min level is, the machine will only use the max. Even if you have Output Direct ticked for text engraving or black and white logos (as in this T shirt bit of fun), the min% will be ignored because anything white will switch the tube off and anything black will use max% power.
When it comes to cutting things are different. If you set a min and max power then the min % power =zero velocity and max % power =your set speed. Again knowing this fact, I can see no logic for your 25% advice. In practice I rarely use max min for cutting because it seems that is feature is only really effective at VERY low min % power. I keep max and min the same whatever the cutting power.
Best wishes
Russ
Thank u Russ for replying me. I am helpful like many others for whom u devote your time and knowledge. Many thing want to learn from your experience . Plz provide me your e-mail I'd .
Thanks once again. Great day ahead.
check your You Tube messages
What was the min power, max power and the speed you used ?
Hi Michael
This was two and a half years ago so that is a very cruel question to ask a guy who is old, grey fat, ugly and with only 2 grey cells left!!!. All I can say is I was probably using an out of focus 1.5" lens because that was all I had at that time. I had great fun then but with all I know now, would probably do it very differently and it would not be as entertaining.
Best wishes
Russ
Thank you very much Russ for your reply. I will definitely keep watching your videos to find out more information about the software. Best wishes !
-Michael
Mist over the shirt with water first, that will stop the shirt from burinig to much
Hi Dave
At this point in my learning journey I did not understand about the Gaussian power distribution in the beam but this was a fun project. I had already experimented with wetting a shirt . Water does absorb some of the energy but evaporates so rapidly that after a few nanoseconds the local fabric is water free and burns just the same . If I was to do the same thing again I would be using the pre ionization zone along with an out of focus 4" lens I may even add dot mode.
Thanks for the comment
Best wishes
Russ
@@SarbarMultimedia Try this, Wet the shirt first then cover the design to be cut with brown packing tape, the tape will still simi stick to the shirt and then do your burn, you will need to weed out some of the tape when finished, but you should get a good result.
@@dmaher2007
Hi Dave
Brown packing tape (plastic) has a slightly higher damage threshold than cotton, so is your idea to attenuate the power to the cotton by absorbing some of the light energy as it vaporizes the tape OR is it that you are trying to melt the packing tape onto the cotton?
Best wishes
Russ
@@SarbarMultimedia vaporizes the tape
@@dmaher2007
Hi Dave
I anticipated that may be your reason. So why not just turn down the burning power of the tube to match the damage threshold of the material? Adding a layer of tape will have no effect. A car crashing through a wall loses its energy in crashing through the wall so what is behind will not feel the impact. That is what you are imagining will happen with the tape. Hmmm.... not quite the same . Instead, stand behind that wall and imagine a high pressure water cannon firing a jet of water at the wall . For a second or two you will feel nothing but once the water has pieced the wall ........... Can you now see the futility of adding a barrier? The whole problem boils down to balancing the energy density supplied by the beam to the damage threshold of the material. Energy density can be controlled in a mix of 4 ways 1) watts. 2) the largest spot size lens, 3) some defocusing and 4 ) linear speed.. Anything you put in the way is just fogging the real problem that has to be solved.. Try it for yourself.
Best wishes
Russ
Haha, fashion victims everywhere rejoice! Think you should stress the use of a natural fibre, COTTON for example, NOT SYNTHETIC, even if the T-shirt was only partially Nylon, or other synthetic fibre, it could cause some real problems
jajajajajajajaja
hahahahaha
Wet the shirt.
Hi Sea
Yes, that seems like an obvious solution but sadly it only confuses the situation. If you fully understood the nature of energy transfer between the beam of IR light and the material it interacts with, you would be able to imagine the effect of your suggestion. Perhaps this example will explain the problem. If you hold the palm of your hand at the tip of a candle flame long enough it will DAMAGE your skin even though the energy density is relatively low. However, if you move your hand over the tip of the candle flame (even very slowly) there will be insufficient energy per unit of time to damage your skin. It's a speed against power balancing act. Now make your hand wet and repeat the experiment. Yes you will be able to move your hand slower, but that's because the available energy has to heat the water first, it does not change the damage threshold for your skin, that remains the same as before.
This was just a very lighthearted fun way to demonstrate the near impossibility of achieving that balancing act because every time the laser approaches a sharp corner the speed reduces but the power does not. Thus you get excess damage to the material at the corners.
Best wishes
Russ
SarbarMultimedia gotcha.
I just bought a 100watt chinese laser, an I'm watching all your vids to prepare myself for delivery. Very excited, and thank you for your experiments.
Best,
Sia