Hi! new to lightburn and trying to get a vector logo to mark cleanly on leather… and no matter the overscan setting I try, or direction of fill, speed, and dpi - always seem to have this issue… extra lines marked between objects in the logo, which makes it look like there’s actually no gap.
red is where the edges of logo are supposed to be, blue shows the extra cut lines.
Leather has given me trouble getting fine lines cut. One thing that helps tie it together is to add a LINE cut around the shape. Also, check your MINIMUM power setting.
-or-
Turn down the power and speed. If your laser is cranking out a high level of power, it takes a millisecond for the laser power to dissapate, Moving the head of the laser slower at a lower power will give it more time to bleed off the excess energized power in the laser. Think of a garden hose that is going at full blast. When you turn off the faucet, there is still water in the hose that is moving to the end of the hose.
I have found that OFFSET fill helps with keeping the edges clean, too.
HTH
Hi, thank you! this is helpful of some things for me to try… makes sense about the power, I have it lower, but I can go more…
if a cut line of the shape, would that be done first before the fill, or after?
the OFFSET fill, I don’t understand exactly… I assumed it would be offset from the design lines?
thanks so much for your help, this definitely points in the right direction!
Offset fill does not shuttle the head back and forth. It starts in the middle of the shape and builds layers outward like an oyster shell.
The outline layer can be either before or after the fill. It will take a little time trying it out to find what you need to do. The moisture and color of the leather makes a difference in the power needed to mark. Unfortunately I cannot give you an exact recipe.
You can also try to turn off the bi-directional cut, so the laser only cuts left to right.
I will try all these, thank you so much!!!
Just to explore this further, what is the engrave speed and what is the traverse or travel speed?
If there is a huge difference between those speeds, you can generate some unusual speed/power differences that seem to move or shift when engrave objects are nearby.
I believe this is what I’m seeing just above the point of the lower blue arrowhead.
If you open the Preview window in LightBurn and select Show Traversal moves you’ll be able to see where the laser is speeding up and slowing down and how that might influence what is being produced.
oh, this is very interesting, and definitely makes logical sense!!! I will check for this… so the idea would be to slow down the traversal moves? I presume thats somewhere in the settings?
just tested, the offset cleaned up the outer lines wonderfully! now the inner lines has material showing through like it’s not dense enough… I have been trying to figure out the correct dpi for this machine and it’s been challenging for some reason. but this offset thing really helped a lot.
@JohnJohn is there a way to change the traverse? - as an update the offset did totally clean up the edges, but now the fill isnt filling solid through the shape, so I’m trying to troubleshoot DPI (I think) - I’m making a new topic about that!
Adjust the line interval to a smaller value. My standard is .1mm
The formula to use the offset fill breaks your shapes into smaller shapes for efficiency sake, and can cause some texturing effects on the final product. I get what I call a patchwork effect on large, monolithic blocks. Very large and complicated shapes will crash my machine due to memory issues. OFFSET is not a perfect remedy to every problem.
example of patch work effect at .15mm line interval
example of patch work effect at .08 interval
Thank you! I will try this as a starting setting… this is what I’m getting: (I created a separate topic about it)
blue areas are supposed to be solid
Yes, that is the issue with the offset fill. A slightly smaller interval will close those up a bit. It is easy to be hyper critical of our own work - every flaw is known to the artist. 
Step back to arm-length and see if those flaws are still bothersome.
Good luck and throw some lasers for fun!
thank you!!! I will mess with this, the big gap is visible from 10’ but the smaller gaps are less critical like you say! I love the clean outer lines of the offset fill, I just need the center to work… it seems silly but I could probably do two passes - this offset one and then a regular fill over it with a margin inside, so it doesn’t ruin the outer lines again… But I feel like there has to be a more proper way to solve!
Getting around obstacles is half the fun for me. I love the challenge of the design work.
Use your preview button - I nearly wear mine out. I preview 20 times or more during the design phase, and again right before the I hit the “GO” button. I can’t guess how many times I missed something, moved something or forgot to add something to a group. PREVIEW is free, while mistakes cost us money and time.
I appreciate your help! - and when looking at the preview, it didn’t show me that it was going to leave these holes, unless there’s a modification for the preview to simulate the actual dot size or something, not sure? maybe I’m not looking at something properly on that. Biggest thing also I have been trying to figure out is the exact optimal interval for this specific machine.
would you mind sharing your project file here? I would be happy to download it and compare results with you.
yes, I’m not home at the moment but certainly appreciate any help
Basically, you must eyeball it: anywhere the lines meet, that’s where you may see a gap.
For example, offset fill works poorly on a long skinny triangle:
You can just see the hole below each vertical peak!
However, the small gaps at the ends of each horizontal line may be small enough to not matter.
As with all things laser: trust, but verify.
Bonus: If the lines were the same width as the scan interval, then the whole picture would be black and everybody (else) would complain the Preview function is broken. 
excellent way of explaining, thank you!!! so it’s very likely then due to the shape of this logo that I may not be able to get the offset to work, meaning that I’ll have to figure out how to get that clean of lines with a regular fill!! - which wasn’t working well in my first efforts (pic in to of this thread) but will try to keep experimenting.
Aye!
It really takes making some scrap with deliberate experiments, although you can save the spendy stuff by perfecting your technique on paper / cardboard / chipboard / whatever. After you get the shapes and layers and patterns and scanning offsets settled, then you make a tiny practice piece on spendy stuff.
It won’t come out quite right, but at least you’ll know which settings will improve it, because you’ve already made those mistakes on cardboard.
