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How to laser engrave/etch areas?

Anonymous

How to laser engrave/etch areas?

Anonymous
Not applicable

Super newbie here, trying to figure out how to engrave/etch an area with a laser. My Sainsmart 3018 CNC uses grbl, figured out the smoothie workaround posted elsewhere to get the post to successfully export a linear laser "etch" but now I can't figure out how to laser/darken areas. The issue is that with engrave it won't let me use a tool that's a laser, I could just trick it into using a super small milling bit but then it won't turn the laser off between patterns. Saw somewhere else someone figured out how to trick the post into turning the laser off whenever it moved in Z, that could work but I'll need some babying through editing in post. No idea where to start on that. Help much appreciated!!

I've got this laser if it matters: https://www.sainsmart.com/products/sainsmart-blue-laser-module-kit

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djowen40
Advocate
Advocate

Fusion isn't designed to output raster toolpaths needed for area engraving. there is an autocad dxf post output that you could use to get a dxf and then try some 3rd party software. 

 

If you want to keep it all in fusion i put together a hacked version of the grbl post that should work.

 

Not sure how you are controlling your laser but I have assumed that M3 will turn the laser on and M5 will turn it off.

 

The attached post is a modified version of the GRBL post that should work with any of the 2D Toolpaths (may work with 3D but didn't test). It turns the laser on (M3) when the cutting process starts (ignoring any lead-in parameters) and turns the laser off when the cutting process finishes. You should be able to engrave areas using a 2Dpocket or 2Dadaptive command and a small tool diameter. (Fusion might choke if you set the diameter to small).

 

To give you an example in the tool path shown below the laser should be on only for the parts of the path shown in blue and will turn off when the path is not blue (e.g. lead-in, lead-out, rapid, helical, etc.)image.png

 

 

Note: This is not a particularly pretty solution the code will have extra M5 commands etc but it should get the job done.

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djowen40
Advocate
Advocate

This should work for cutting tool paths too. Just set up a flat endmill the diameter of your laser kurf and use 2D Contour tool path. 

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Anonymous
Not applicable

Hey I've gotten your modified GRBL post processor to work to engrave using the 2d pocket, but the 2d contour is not working, it  uses m5 where there should be an M3, is that something you can fix or am I doing something wrong in the tool path setup?

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djowen40
Advocate
Advocate

Yup like I said it was quick and dirty.

 

The attach .cps should fix this.

 

Note that this change means that lead in and lead out movement will now turn the laser on. If you are using pocketing for raster as before then you will likely want to turn your lead-in and lead-out off for the pocket operations to avoid screwing up your engraving. 

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djowen40
Advocate
Advocate

You may want to consider LaserWeb (https://laserweb.yurl.ch/) this appear to be an excellent solution for GRBL laser.  Preview walk through here https://youtu.be/W0Vk_Sw5lks.

 

You can save your faces etc. as dxf and do all the rastering cutting etc. in LaserWeb.  Just throwing ideas out there. if your happy with fusion post processing then by all means carry on. 

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Anonymous
Not applicable

awesome, thanks so much, I'll give it a shot.  I just found out a work around, it did work for 2d Trace which is essentially what I wanted anyways.  I don't usually use lead ins so this will likely work too, thanks again, I'll post updates

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