I need to engrave an image of a map of the coastline of Texas onto a bar top that is 10 feet long. My laser has passthrough doors allowing any length of wood to be moved through the machine in 2 foot segments. This will require 5 separate vector images that are tiled in the Y direction and need to join accurately.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Nevin
This is not an easy task but made easier now with camera integration. Previously, I have worked large pieces using Jig(s), registration marks and a lot of testing. Designed jig to allow pass-through while supporting full work piece with as little side to side movement as possible using parallel fences. Now with camera support, aligning registration marks should be a lot easier.
1 Like
What about engraving a section, then advancing the substrate forward to what looks like the correct position by eye (or camera)… then put down a strip of masking tape across the joint between engravings so the edge exactly follows the line/seam of the just-engraved portion… then run a super low powered run of the next segment (just a small segment, not the whole thing) to see how it lines up? If it is not correct, adjust, the pull up the old tape, put down a new piece of tape and then run the check engrave again. I guess you would want to put down some sort of temporary covering over the already engraved section when running the test engrave just in case your alignment is way off in order to protect what you have already engraved.
This is an interesting area, as I too want to use the pass through but have found it hit-and-miss. My ‘spot’ isn’t guaranteed to be close enough to accurately enough be trusted for registration.
I really want a ‘through the lens’ spot, but that’s the preserve of higher end machines than I can afford.
Someone must have made a pass-through registration tutorial… I’ll go on the hunt.