I’m pretty low on the learning curve but hoping for a steer in the right direction. I’m using an Elegoo Phecda 20 watt diode laser to etch (remove the paint) from painted aluminum.
My application is to create control panels for electronic equipment, and as such I need to do simple graphics but mostly text, often as small as 10-12 point in size. Thus getting a crisp clear mark is my goal.
I’ve created my artwork in Inkscape and it looks great on the screen, but when I import the svg file into Lighburn it came in as thin lines and letters. So I tried exporting the artwork as a png and bringing that into Lighburn which is correctly identified as an Image layer. I used my material test settings to etch a test part which is actually pretty good and would be usable, but I think it could be better, and suspect I’m not doing this the right way.
That’s my question - if you have an svg file with the desired appearance in terms of line widths etc, what is the best way to bring it into Lighburn with that exact appearance?
Here is an example - you can see jagged edges and that’s what I’d like to improve on. Thanks!
Bob
Inkscape lets you apply stroke widths & suchlike, all of which LightBurn discards, because it just handles the vectors / curves.
Which then gets traced and converted back to vectors that approximate the original ones, so it can only be worse than the original.
Basically, if it hurts when you do that, don’t do that.
Instead, think only of vectors outlining the objects you want in the final result, because those will determine the precise areas the laser beam will etch. Don’t bother with stroke widths.
Export as SVG, import in LightBurn, set the layer to Fill, and LightBurn will handle the rest.
You’ll eventually need to set the Scanning Offset Adjustment and pick the proper Line Interval for best results, but those are in the nature of fine tuning.
I clearly came to the right place! Thanks Ed, your explanation makes sense and was simple to do, just setting Inkscape to line rather than fill, and then setting the layer to Fill in LightBurn. The etch quality is much better than my initial attemt with the png as expected. Pretty brilliant software
I’ll experiment with the settings you mentioned for optimization, now that I know I’m at least using the right procedure.
This is for an early phasing type SSB transmitter from the mid 50s. A friend has one also and both were missing most of the front panel lettering, so I thought it would be a great learning opportunity.
