After moderate success the past couple of months, I’m still having issues with detail on smaller engravings. On the top is stock K40 Moshi controller and bottom is Smoothie and LaserWeb4. Both are the same source image. These are all black and white images and I really need them to look as close to,the top image as possible. Any suggestions on settings for the raster processI have tried different settings for speed and power as well as contrast and “smooth” setting.
Laser power, raster speed and type of material greatly changes how it looks. Since the material is similar,I would lower laser power and/or increase raster speed until you are happy with the results.
None of my speed and laser power notes that I took of various materials were the same after I upgraded to the c3d board. The laser seemed like it had more power but it is really due to how the tube is pulsed with PWM signal.
I like darker engravings personally. They even make a spray called laser dark to achieve a even darker image.
@Jim_Fong I get that. It’s not the darker that is a problem, it is that it’s blowing out all the detail and the edges aren’t nearly as crisp.
Do you use the smoothing option or mess with the contrast
@Kelly_Burns ok I see that it’s missing some detail. My guess is that the original laser draw handles dithering of the image different from laserweb. For better laser engravings, I’ve had to adjust some images. I use photoshop to equalize and change the threshold levels for grayscale images.
Laserweb has some adjustments but I prefer to do it using photoshop. I just haven’t played around with the built in ones in Laserweb4 yet
Ill just keep going after it and try to find that combination that works. These are black and white images so no Grayscale. I love the way BW line art use to look off the laser so I’m Zjust a bit disappointed with this.
@Kelly_Burns if you can, post the image and I’ll adjust and try it on my laser.
That would be awesome. I will post as soon as I get back to my Office
Also add that laser focus make a big difference in sharpness and raster quality. I use a small adjustable table to get the proper height.
I agree with that, but I believe I’ve got the focus as good as I can. My adjustable height is done with Card stock. It works extremely well.
I have 3D printed the parts for anadjustable table, but still need some hardware to complete.
The second engraving looks like lower resolution. What Laser Diameter did you configure?
For example: 0.1mm would be 254 DPI. The default setting is 0.2mm, which is only 127 DPI! Did ou try with 0.05mm?
I think LaserDraw is using up to 1000 DPI (which doesn’t make sense because the beam diameter is bigger than 0.025mm).
@Jim_Fong Here’s the file. Not sure if this is the best way to share it.
https://filebin.net/hmr0l4dbpy8tpsxu
json file
Thanks Jim. That was very nice of you. Those definitely look closer to what I was hoping for.
@Jim_Fong are you GRBL?
@Kelly_Burns yes but it wouldn’t make much difference. Smoothieware has the same raster output on my machine.
100% power is set at 10ma on my current meter. I think going even faster feed would look better. Edges seemed to be burned to much in the lager and ales portion. Maybe try 200mm/sec and 50% power to get cleaner text.
Yes, but I’m thinking my smoothieware settings could be source of problem. My rastering doesn’t seem to get above 100mm/s. Even when I run from SD card. have a 2nd SD with GRBL and thought I would try it again. I went back to Smoothie because I could figure out the “set zero” function in GRBL. I use that quite often with the types of stuff I do. Can you set the origin to different positions in GRBL.
Thanks for all the info.
@Kelly_Burns the three axis version of grbl-lpc has working “set zero” button. 4th axis is still broken. The set origin on grbl-lpc works same as smoothieware. Atleast I can’t tell any difference between functionality. This is the version of grbl-lpc on my k40 laser currently.
current grbl-lpc settings used
Grbl 1.1f [’$’ for help]
[MSG:’$H’|’$X’ to unlock]
$0=10
$1=255
$2=0
$3=3
$4=0
$5=1
$6=0
$10=0
$11=0.010
$12=0.002
$13=0
$20=0
$21=0
$22=1
$23=1
$24=30.000
$25=3000.000
$26=250
$27=2.000
$30=1000
$31=0
$32=1
$33=5000.000
$34=0.000
$35=0.000
$36=100.000
$100=160.000
$101=160.000
$102=160.000
$110=15000.000
$111=15000.000
$112=500.000
$120=2500.000
$121=2500.000
$122=2500.000
$130=300.000
$131=200.000
$132=50.000
$140=0.400
$141=0.600
$142=0.000
ok
I did end up converting to GRBL again. Thanks for the files and info on that. Not being able to Set Zero was killing me and when I looked it up, it looked like it wasn’t available in GRBL.
I think I have them looking the best they can with the machine right now. I have to believe that LW will kick the crap out of the Moshiboard and MoshiDraw garbage. Though I must admit, the one thing I was always impressed with was how it handled Logos. Especially those that were essentially already B/W and stylized.
Moving on… When I’m done with my next 2 weekends of shows, I’m going to tear this thing down and start over. I have built CNCs and other Stepper-based projects. With this conversion, I rushed it and cut corners and simply didn’t do the testing at various stages that I normally would have. I also now have a 2nd Brand New K40. I’ll get that online so I can take my time rebuilding this one and adding all the features I had planned. Simple Power Z Table and Rotary Axis.
Thanks for the assistance gentlemen.