80W Omtech Laser, plenty of power, and their included reference image (which I can’t copy off to a memory stick to examine - that always fails - grrr!) slices and dices wood all day long, but when I create a cut layer and set the power high (85%) and speed low (8mm/sec), as some of the tutorials suggest, on one of my own from-scratch documents, it just makes a nice line - it doesn’t cut through or even come close.
I watched the tutorials on cutting but it shows Lightburn layers having a “cut” mode, which is not available from the Mode drop-down menu so perhaps this option has been removed? Again, the docs basically say that if you simple use “Line” with high power and low speed, you’ll cut, but I’m not having that experience. It just makes a line. Any clues to shed? Thanks!
The minimum power is used until the head is moving faster than the ‘Start Speed’ set in the controller.
If minimum is set to 50% and max to 85%, with the Start Speed at 20mm/s you will have 50% power until you exceed the 20mm/s. If you are running 8mm/s you will have 50% power.
Check your ‘start speed’ or set min/max power on the layer to the cut power.
Yup, thanks for asking! As I said, when using the in-memory reference image provided by OMTech, it cuts through the wood no problem, same focus settings. It’s only when I use Lightburn that I cannot get a cut to happen. The tutorials on this appear to be for an older version of lightburn.
Thanks for the very thorough reply, @jkwilborn! Sorry, still kind of in newb mode here - which property settings editor are you in? When I double click on the layer in question, I just get the UI I screenshotted above.
Since we’re on the subject, I’m a little unclear on one fundamental aspect of the UI: When a slider switch is set, it usually displays the square “toggle” in the direction of the setting and the “dot” to show the other position, but in this UI it seems backwards - the toggle goes in the opposite direction and then the slider lights up green. I’m guessing that green means “on” (god help those poor color blind people ) here?
Is there a reason you have set “Perforation Mode”? That will literally skip sections of the line when burning. If not deliberate, try disabling this and trying again.
I set “perforation mode” largely out of desperation because I thought “hey, maybe it needs to perforate?” I can turn that back off, thanks for letting me know what it does! Still stuck on this though. Lightburn’s UI is undoubtedly powerful but also complex enough that I’m sort of trying things at random at this point.
Follow-up: I thought it might actually make some sense if I posted my file for others to look at (this should have occurred to me earlier!). I separated each object into its own layer for clarity and every other layer is just fine, it’s just “cut” that I can’t get to live up to its name.
Thank you to everyone for the help so far - very nice forum!
Also, can you go into your Edit->Machine Settings and take a screenshot of the settings that @jkwilborn referred to?
I’m noticing in your cut file that you set Min Power to 25%. Depending on what the “Start Speed” value is set to on your controller it’s possible that you’re running the cut at very low speeds. Alternatively, you could raise your Min power to match your Max to see if you can get it to cut and then adjust later.
I haven’t tried really using RDWorks since my Windows machine is currently dead (this is what happens when you do a laser show at night and then forget the open laptop when you’re packing up your gear and leave it out all night in the rain! ) and I just have my Mac right now. That said, perhaps I can try RDWorks under VMWare - I’ll give that a try!
The machine came pretty well set up and I just had to run the autofocus program to get it to do decent test prints using their built in imagery (the machine comes preloaded with some stuff in non-volatile memory in the Ruida controller).
That was it, thank you! Either bringing min up to max or simply increasing the speed to 30 did the trick (I was under the impression that I had to go really slow to cut). I now have a successful door sign mock-up in wood, now to print it in acrylic!
Thanks for all the help, everyone! This is fun stuff! Once the front door sign is done, I’m off to build https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5161061 for a kid’s bedroom. I need to find a fairly long sheet of black plastic and just feed it in the side since I’d rather do it as one piece. How do folks usually align long pieces with the plane of the table such that nothing prints crooked?
Gah. I spoke too soon. :(. When I tried to do this on acrylic, sure enough, it didn’t cut again. Posting the new lightburn file as well as my machine settings in hopes that someone can see what I’m clearly still missing! Front Door.lbrn2 (201.3 KB)
Why are you using these settings ?, try to st all this back and try to cut your test piece. How thick is your acry ?, if it is over 4mm you will probably need to adjust your speed. Once you have a result, make a test piece for your collection with the data you used today (mA and mm / s)
I was trying stuff in desperation based on other feedback, but I can certainly reset to defaults.
I think you’re right in that I need to step back from actually trying to make something and just try some small test squares on a piece of waste acrylic (mine is 1/8" thick btw) until I figure out what works and what does not.
Thanks for the replies, everyone - I really appreciate everyone’s help! I think I’m trying to “run” here when I need to learn how to crawl first. I will now start experimenting with lines and squares and different speeds and power settings.
Got it! I had to play with a sheet of waste material and simply bump on the speeds and power settings until I got the results I wanted, then work backwards. I am noticing that some fill types still burn (wood) darker / deeper than other types, but I’m going to now create a calibration file with various shapes and fille types at different power settings so that I can test it on any new material and keep that around for reference.
Thanks, AGAIN, for all the help everyone - I’m learning a lot!
That’s fine to hear.
What you are doing is the only way to find all the possibilities of your machine, experiment as much as possible and you will be rewarded with fine experiences and results.
Nb. Because the machines and tubes are so different, it is also not really possible to just copy other people’s values. But of course you can use other people’s data for orientation and comparison if it is the same machine specification area.
It just makes a line. Any clues to shed? Thanks!
) here?
I can turn that back off, thanks for letting me know what it does! Still stuck on this though. Lightburn’s UI is undoubtedly powerful but also complex enough that I’m sort of trying things at random at this point. 
) and I just have my Mac right now. That said, perhaps I can try RDWorks under VMWare - I’ll give that a try!
