Is there a way to set up a delay in the program between an engrave and a cut? I run my compressed air at around 5psi for engraves and want to bump it up to 25 or so for the cut out. I manually adjust my regulator for this. My engraving is an image and there isn’t any option (that I can find) to put in a delay between the cycles. I’d rather not have to send it twice (one for engraving and another for the cut out) if possible. Is there a way to do this?
I want to make an extra layer of zero power which fills the time to perform that I need.
That would work. It’s basically a dummy layer…it would only need to be 5-10 seconds to dial in the regulator. Thanks for the suggestion
You’re welcome 
Ever thought about the ‘air assist’ that many of us use?
This is a commercial ‘kit’. I and many others have put it together without the kit at lower cost…
I have a more straightforward version of this with a regulator and solenoid. Th solenoid is hooked into the wind port on the controller. It’s a manual regulator and needs about 1/2 turn ir so between engraving and cutting. I suppose if I wanted to get fancy I could add another solenoid with a restrictor after the main solenoid, assuming I could control it via software. So far the adding of an additional layer seems easiest, unless there is a specific function in LB to put a delay in when going from image to cutting.
It is probably easier to mickey mouse some mechanism, but you have to do it every time and that gets old pretty fast.
Didn’t mention that you could ‘send’ just the engraving to the machine and let it run then only the cut out portion. You can use the ‘Cut selected graphics’ in the laser window to only do the ‘selected’ part of the design.
Use the KISS principle, take a few minutes put another solenoid in there and it’s fixed forever… 
Hi Jack,
I’m not opposed to to adding the second solenoid as it’s pretty easy to put another one in. My question is how to send a signal to the cutter that it’s using the low air flow vs the “main” air flow.
For example, if I’m engraving, I use about 5psi (give or take) and when cutting, I’m using about 25 psi. If I add a second solenoid, (or a three way solenoid for that matter), I would need a way to switch the main solenoid open for air, then another way to switch to low pressure. I’m not sure how best to connect it to the ruida and control it through lightburn. Basically, I would need an extra output and a control in LB to switch it on and off depending on the layer, right? Am I understanding it correctly? I looked at the ultimate air assist and from what I can tell, it’s used primarily to switch the compressor on and off in addition to controlling the air flow, but not being able to vary the airflow based on layer.
I totally agree about making it as simple as possible. It makes everything much more efficient and repeatable. Thanks for all the feedback
You are making it more complicated than needed.
There are two outputs of the Ruida that are used. The main one is ‘Status’ and is active when you run a job. So anytime you start a job the ‘Status’ will sink current.
I have an external air compressor with a tank and I run 30 psi to the machine anytime the compressor is connected.
The solenoids are situated such that when ‘Status’ goes active, it allows the 30 psi to go through the first solenoid. The 30 psi goes into a restrictor to reduce the pressure. So when the machine is in the ‘run’ state I have the restricted pressure in the head.
The other sink is the ‘Wind’. When you enable ‘Air Assist’ on the specific ‘layer’ and that layer is executed, ‘Wind’ will sink. This opens the second relay, bypassing the restrictor giving full pressure of 30 psi to the head.
Make sense?
Hi Jack,
That is super helpful- you’re basically running low pressure all the time and bypassing the restrictor when using “Air Assist” in conjunction with the “Wind” output.
I’m not using “Status” at the moment, only the “Wind” one.
That makes sense. Thanks for the explanation.
Don’t say that around the airport… 
It’s pretty simple. I found that no matter what I was lasing the lens needed protection, so I never lase without some minimal amount of air flow.
Take care…
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