Hello,
I have just downloaded the software, and before I test it, as I am just thinking about accomplishing a project, I want to ask here about the following:
I want to use a 3 axis engraver to engrave an irregular surface (its a 3D terrain model). So, my best bet to try this is to attach a sensor to the laser head that reads the z offset of the irregular surface and drive the z axis (laser distance) up or down so the laser maintain the focus to the surfce.
If the surface goes up 1 mm, the laser goes 1 mm etc… maintaining the focus.
Is it possible to feed this information to the program? OR I need to somewaht “slice” the engraving image vector to their respective heights/z and then make layers ("slice as for 3D printing)?
May sound strange the project?
thanks in advance
How would you do that for non-metallic surfaces?
Any sensor you have can’t be ‘exactly’ where you need to measure it, it would be in the way of the beam…
If it’s offset from the beam, which it would have to be, you would have to know what direction the head is moving to apply the information…
Lightburn is really a 2d laser control program. It does some Z movement, but I don’t know of any way to ‘insert’ code to control this… I don’t know where you’d get the data to drive it either… I don’t think there is a way to control Z movement except at the layer level… you couldn’t change it within the layer…
The slew rate of the Z axes would need to be taken into account also.
Some of the people here might have an idea of how you could implement that but I think you will have a problem with just figuring out how far to adjust it and when and where …
Slicing it, would be out of the scope of Lightburn, I would think … can’t think of how you could actually load it into Lightburn and have it make sense to that software.
LightBurn does not currently offer slicing or Z-axis control for art. The depth of cut for lasers is based on engrave power (percentage) and speed. There are methods in Grey-Scale to 3D carve ‘Relief’ and they are very challenging.
Another method for developing controlled depth is to make several layers based on modifying an outline and then stacking them to generate a stunning 3D effect.
OK, I see
The idea, is about making the laser engrave work as a cnc, but just to engrave the surface. I mean, make the lase maintin a fixed distance over the surface, so it will maintain focus. I dont want to drill anything, just make the laser maintain ie: 5 cm over the surface as it moves, so it will engrave the irregular surface.
So, if, we have only one layer and make the laser mive up and down maintaining the distance over the surface (I can have a heightmap as ie: grayscale image), the laser can do the job…
Perhaps I am not right in my concept…
The concept is common, the problem is implementing it…
How would you ‘sense’ the change in focus difference?
I use Candle to send code to my engraver for pcb’s. I can ‘map’ out the variations of the pcb and apply those to the tool Z height when it executes the gcode.
I know of no way to do this or anything similar with Lightburn… you could probably generate the grbl in Lightburn then run the machine via Candle to map variations… ?
In Gbrl , I can get or make a height map and apply it to the vectors to make ie: Basreliefs,… so, I was thinking about doing something similar. The focus will be maintained if the distance from the laser to the surface is maintained.
When you use ‘grayscale’ it varies the laser percentage of power not the Z axes position.
I don’t know how you could apply the data, where ever it is, to the machines operation…
I’m not saying you can’t but this has been brought up numerous times… Maybe you can solve it… I doubt it with Lightburn as it’s mostly a 2d application – it’s Z control is limited as far as I know.
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