topic Re: Printing to Laser Engraver in Fusion Support Forum

Printing to Laser Engraver

adwoods43LGY — Tue, 19 Oct 2021 18:48:49 GMT

Printing to an Epilogue Laser Engraver from Inventor to vector cut out parts on Wood and Plastic was as Easy as:

Create a sheet the size of the material
Remove the titleblock and Border
Place 1:1 views of parts to be cut out
Set line weights of everything to be vector cut to 0.001in
File>Print>Print Settings Use the Epilogue Printer driver to set power and speed settings for vector
File>Print!

Now I am trying to do the same on Fusion 360 and have the following two problems:

Setting Line widths: I am limited to choosing based on a line width group, I have the line widths set to the "Very thin group" but it is listed as 0.13mm for thin, but I am not even sure that the base view outline of my part is the Thin Line of that group. I have fingers crossed the printer driver reads this as thin enough to vector along. The printer driver is expecting line widths of 0.001 in.
There is no Print Settings Button on the Drawing to access the printer driver!!!! There is a print button which send the file directly to the engraver, but i do not want the default Power and Speed settings, I need to change these to match my material.

A Trial run shows that the print sent to the Epilogue has a line width that is too thick, and is being read as a Raster Print, instead of the necessary Vector Print. So much for fingers crossed!

Has anyone found a workaround for Printing Directly from a Fusion 360 to an Epilogue Laser engraver?

Is there a future update that will add a Print Settings Button?

Is there a future update that will give us actual control of linewidths of a drawing and not just place them into default groups?

Re: Printing to Laser Engraver

ClintBrown3D — Wed, 20 Oct 2021 05:18:09 GMT

Hi @adwoods43LGY

There are a couple of things to consider. With Line width groups, changing to "Very Thin" scales all line thicknesses proportionately.

I would suggest that you set up a custom line width group and set all of the lines to 0.13. This will ensure that All lines are at the same thickness.

With regard to printing, please have a look at this article. In it, I explain how printing currently works in Fusion 360 and give a couple of options for giving you more control over prints. We are planning to add more print controls to Fusion drawings (see the public roadmap here).

I hope that this is helpful.

Re: Printing to Laser Engraver

adwoods43LGY — Mon, 25 Oct 2021 18:32:02 GMT

I do not have an option for a Custom Line width group.

The Two Screenshots show that I can choose the defaults. And from preferences I can find those, but not change them. I do not see where to create a custom Line width.

Fusion 360 on my lab computer is currently: 2.0.10356

Re: Printing to Laser Engraver

ClintBrown3D — Tue, 26 Oct 2021 10:57:23 GMT

Hi @adwoods43LGY

We added Line Width groups to our August release, check out the details and video here.

Looking at your screenshot and build number, it looks like you are on an older build of Fusion. Once your lab updates, you will get the latest features.

My Windows machine is running 2.0.11405

Re: Printing to Laser Engraver

adwoods43LGY — Tue, 24 May 2022 16:41:24 GMT

Update to May 2022. I have Updated to version 2.0.12888

I can prep a drawing and set linewidths to 0.13mm . I can turn off Borders and Title Blocks. Tomorrow i wil lcheck if 0.13mm is seen as a hairline and report back.

Next Minor issue is not being able to set custom Sheet sizes to match the stock in the machine. Workaround is to Select Sheet E Which is larger then printable size but acceptable.