I’m experiencing an issue when I try to Print to my Epilog Mini 24 Laser. Raster is coming out well, but vector lines aren’t being recognized. For some reason Epilog recognizes the cut lines as ‘too thick’ and is rastering them. If anyone has sorted this problem, please advise! Otherwise, it’d be awesome if there was the option to turn lines into ‘hairline’, less than .004" or .101mm thick.
Thanks!
Yes I am, I’m also using the color manager to manage the settings.
Thanks!
First off, thank you very much for putting that tutorial together! I found it in a few threads and found it very helpful.
My issue is that I send the file to the print manager, separated by colors, and the machine ‘rasters’ my vector line (red). In the Epilog manual its says that it will automatically Engrave lines above a certain thickness depending on DPI. In Lightburn a cut line is a cut line, there is no way to ensure that Epilog sees it as ‘thin’ enough to cut. I’ve gone through several iterations, making changes along the way to DPI (lower DPI, higher line thickness is allowed) to see if I can get a different output, no luck. You’re instructions were solid, they’re just not working for me unfortunately. I even downloaded the PDF you made of Lightburn Layer Colors - thanks you for doing that! - to make sure I was using the right RGB numbers, but it didn’t make a difference.
I know that I’m missing something, I appreciate the assistance trying to get me straight.
I do have Corel, the option you mention is the only one that I can get to work. I’ll admit it’s a painful option as I just don’t enjoy working with Corel that much. Lightburn has become my program of choice for vector design so it’d be awesome if I could figure this out. The only reason I’m even touching Corel is because the lines coming out of Lightburn don’t seem to be ‘thin’ enough for Epilog to recognize as a vector, not a raster.
Thanks for the help!!! I really appreciate it. I’m hopeful that there is a simple solution out there somewhere.
@LightBurn quick question for you. Can you confirm what thickness a Line exports or prints at? I recently purchased an Epilog Mini 24 and I have everything working from Lightburn to the Laser, except the vector function. In the Epilog manual it provides a graphic that breaks down line thickness by DPI with a .004" or .101mm line thickness or less being recommended. Thanks in advance for the help, I love Lightburn and really want to figure out how to make this work!
I did a bit more research on this than I probably should have. Chased down a rabbit hole.
I’m not familiar with the Epilog workflow but sounds like it’s implemented as a print driver. Took a shot at trying to determine how LightBurn would handle printing and exports.
Starte with a simple test with a rectangle exported as SVG. Looks like it’s being export with a stroke thickness of 0.05 mm. This should be thinner than basically any minimum across DPIs in your chart.
rect transform=“translate(125,132)” style=“stroke:#000000;stroke-width:0.05mm;fill:none” x=“-80” y=“-66” width=“160” height=“132”
Then thought maybe the SVG export stroke size differed from how prints were rendered. Thought printing to PDF might be a good test. Here’s the relevant stream portion of the PDF.
0.750000 0.000000 0.000000 -0.750000 0.000000 792.000000 cm\nq\n0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 RG\n2 J\n2 j\n10.000000 M\n0.160 w\n596.960022 339.040009 m\n219.039993 339.040009 l\n219.039993 716.960022 l\n596.960022 716.960022 l\n596.960022 339.040009 l\nh\nS\nQ\n
Line width is 0.160 points which would translate to ~0.002 inches → ~0.05 mm. This is roughly the same as the SVG. In either case this would translate to a cut according to the DPI document.
Not definitive but might be barking up the wrong tree with this.
That is what I was hoping would happen as well. I used the Palette RGB file for Lightburn that you made to ensure I was using the right colors in the Dashboard. In the Color Mapping section I set one color as a vector, the other as a raster. Due to line thickness, I think, it rasters the line at the default raster setting. It recognizes the line, but it doesn’t recognize it as something it can cut. When I export the file into Corel and print from there, it works, after I’ve made sure the thickness is hairline for the lines I want cut. The line appears to come in as ‘hairline’ in Corel from the Lightburn export - so maybe it isn’t line thickness, but its worth exploring. This thing is soooo close to working without extra steps…
Thanks for the help! Some pic’s below of what I’m talking about
What settings I’m using in Lightburn:
Epilog Color Mapping Settings:
The File in Job Manager, it identifies the line but gives it the default black raster setting, vice green:
Awesome, thanks for checking into this! You are correct, it is implemented as a print driver. If I export as a DXF it appears to open at the ‘Hairline’ thickness in Corel. From Corel, I can send to the Epilog print driver and have it do what I want. The same thing should be possible from Lightburn, but for some reason it is not recognizing lines coming straight from Lightburn as something it can vector cut.
From what you posted it appears that the lines are thin enough, so maybe it’s something else.
From lightburn I made a box, set to Line, and sent it to Print. In the Laser Dashboard I set it to Vector. The following error popped up after I sent it to the machine.
Not sure if this the potential problem but the RGB value I get for the Green layer 3 is:
(0,224,0) whereas your color mapper shows (0,255,0).
Could it be that it’s just not matching to the color?
Also, what does it mean to have independent choices for vector and raster in the color mapper? Meaning why is it not a binary choice?
Good eyes! You are correct, I had the wrong color in the Color Mapping software. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be making a difference when I input the correct RGB or use a different color. The colors will come through if I leave Raster as an option. If I’m trying Vector, the color and vector outline will not come through. I’ve dropped the DPI all the way down to 75 and it still doesn’t come through.
After today’s discussion and experimentation, the issue seems to be in how vector lines are being communicated between the Print function in Lightburn and the Laser Dashboard. If I try to do a Vector Only output I get the error message I uploaded earlier.
Thanks for the help!
That’s super odd that this works. I think determining what the difference is here is key to understanding how to resolve this.
I thought this was only true if you used the bitmap backend. Assumed that it left vectors for the printer driver to address if left as vector backend.
For the PDF file I examined printed from LightBurn the stream doesn’t look like a raster image to me. It looks like vector information.
Here’s an annotated version of what I think are the relevant lines:
596.960022 339.040009 m starting position
219.039993 339.040009 l line left ~377
219.039993 716.960022 l line up ~377
596.960022 716.960022 l line right ~377
596.960022 339.040009 l line down ~377
The PDF was created using MS Save to PDF printer driver. So LightBurn not directly involved in the creation of the PDF.
This is a curious situation.
Interesting. Does ULS use the same type of heuristic as the Epilog driver where sufficiently thin lines are interpreted as cuts?
I assume this is because it’s saved as vector format in PDF and Reader either passes vectors to driver or rasterizes it in a way that the driver recognizes.
I did see some documentation on Inkscape forums about changes to the print mechanism with regard to vector vs raster backends. Curious what changed to break this.
Here is a screenshot of the software that Epilog offers for the Mini 24. One is the print driver that gives you the Laser Dashboard, the other is the Job Manager that allows you to see the details of the job and make adjustments. Interesting comment on the 1px output, that might be the issue. See below px to mm graphic, looks like 1px is too large by a significant margin (1px = 0.2645833333mm). The ideal width is .101mm. In order to hit that number the px width would need to be .3817…
Software:
px to mm conversion:
Curious for sure - thank you for helping with your expertise!
Are we talking about 1px screen resolution? Can you try increasing your screen resolution by 4x and running a print job that way? If that works, then shows definitively that’s the problem.
I’n not sure, I was responding to @RalphU comment about 1px output. I checked my resolution and I’m at the max setting for my computer 2746x1824.
Alternatively, perhaps try printing to a color PDF. Then printing that PDF to the laser driver as @RalphU is doing. I suspect vectors will be preserved in the print to PDF and the PDF reader may rasterize in a laser friendly resolution.
What type of video card do you have? You may be able to increase the virtual resolution while on the same monitor.
