New LS3060 some help needed

[Spooky]

Cut down to 640mm sections Rob, just posted some pictures of the finished item in 6mm ply

Soon as I can get the 2012 Laser system from Chris I'm going to do a few bigger ones as demo pieces.

I don't really make much in the way of models other than to test that my commercial sale items actually go together. I do the designs and get them all set up for cutting then sell the plans on commercially. It's fun work but can get tedious when plans go amiss (hence the need to actually make the stuff I sell plans for) From memory I do plans from about £2 up to £4000 then supply them on USB data keys so a pretty wide margin of prices.

Must admit though I get a LOT more requests to cut custom projects of late, some I take on and others I avoid (specially if the supplied plans are old or innacurate) drawing time can be massive on an old plan that has to be converted. Great if the client wants to make a few hundred to thousands of items but not really viable for just one or two (not with 60 to 150 hours of drawing time involved in the conversion)

best wishes

Dave

[Mike]

I have an LS3060, these machines are good value for money, dead easy to use, but its a steep learning curve getting everything right.

Mine was delivered to NE scotland, and got here well. used it for several months no problems, I have since moved it to new premises
1 Mile down the road and have had to set mirror alignment, buts thats done easy enough once you know what you are doing.

I would buy the addtional tube too if you can afford it, if you ever need one then you will likely have to travel to halifax to pick it up as sending them as spare parts by courier is not an option. I am gettign one next week.

I use mine mainly for engraving, you can see some samples here
http://modulusamplification.com/ENGRAVI ... W8417.aspx

Hope that helps

Mike

[Spooky]

Thats some tidy work Mike

best wishes

Dave

[robburge@sky.com]

Yes Mike they look really nice.

I'm amazed by the versatility of these machines. I hope to make a start by creating a range of 7mm scale railway building kits which I hope to sell a few of. They will be made from ply and mdf with plastic and acrylic windows. I have started drawing the first one which will be a LSWR signal box, the drawing is going OK but I'm not an expert so it is a bit slow. I am hoping the Dave will cast a quick knowledgeable eye over it and give me a few pointers when I meet him.

I wont rule out doing anything with it though - just need to start out within my comfort and knowledge zone.

When I get my machine I will collect it even if it is a long way to go. Went to collect a parcel from a depot last night and you should have seen them chucking the boxes out of the back of a van - god knows how the contents ended up.

Regards

Rob

[Spooky]

Hiya Rob,

Sorry for not getting back to you with speeds / feeds etc. I'm writing up a small program that will run on any windows OS that will allow entry of Material type, thickness and tube power and will output speed and feeds that have worked well.
Soon as it's done I'll post a link here to the download

best wishes

Dave

[robburge@sky.com]

Today I have set up my new laser - got water and air going - and did an alignment test, which went OK.

The questions I have are about the power.

The control panel on start-up shows '100/100%' power. There is nothing in the documentation to explain what that means - does anyone know?

My next question is, if I wanted to run it at say 75% in order to preserve the tube life, do I do it here (and which value gets altered?), or do I just let LaserCut do it for me?

Also there doesn't seem to be any documentation on how to use the control panel at all - does anyone have anything?

Any help appreciated

Regards

Rob

[Spooky]

Hiya Rob,

Check your email

best wishes

Dave

[robburge@sky.com]

Thanks Dave for sending me the manual - great help once again.

I have another question (and I'm sure there will be many more!) for anyone please:

I created my first test file to see how different settings affected a piece of 2mm mdf.

I drew 6 lines on 6 different layers and imported it into lasercut. I assigned the first three lines different speeds and power and set them to engrave. I assigned different speed/power on the other three but set them to cut. When I tried to download the file to the laser it reported an error on the three engrave lines saying that engrave polylines must be closed. What am I doing wrong here. The file did download and the three cuts worked but the engrave lines were ignored.

Hope you can help

Regards

Rob

[Spooky]

Hiya Rob,

Engraved lines have to be closed shapes, IE: a circle or shape that has no start and finish points.

In turbocad or autocad make sure the grip points are actaully joining, one of the most common errors for drawings is creating a shape and having a micro scale gap between ends.

The laser tries to find the enclosed shape and as there is a gap the shape is NOT closed, hence the machine reports an error

A straight line in essence is 1 dimensional, it has length, to enmgrave it must have 2 dimensions, length and width. (line weights don't count)

hope that helps

Best wishes

Dave

[robburge@sky.com]

Thanks Dave

That makes sense but then how would you engrave just a line on something?

Regards

Rob