Just found a confusing issue with offset fill. I have created a job as shown in the video. With the blue outer border set to offset fill. If the optimisation settings have anything but Order by layer as the top option then the offset fill goes over the whole image, not just the border. Changing the laying setting to standard fill, it works as expected.
Link to video and lb file.
Thanks Oz. Other than this bug, what a fantastic time saver offset fill is. These plaques are only 100mm x 60mm but as a 10 up step and repeat the time saved is huge. A great new feature!
Well done, great job! Although I did run into a problem yesterday when I had to revert back to normal Fill. I had changed from cutting hard maple at 5000mm/min @100% power to much softer Lime at 5000mm/Min @ 50%. The corners were not cutting presumably because of the normal vector issue of slowing down for the ends of lines and corners reducing the power. I couldn’t find a combination that would work. Increasing the speed to 10000mm/min and increasing power to 100% made it worse. I guess it’s because of my low acceleration numbers 400mm/sec^ (it’s a self build with small drivers). Low speed, high power seems to be the only combo that works. It’s areal pity as the the speed saving is impressive. I have tried the M3 configuration, but for the majority of work the corners overburn so not really an option. Any suggestions other than trying to improve the acceleration?
Are you using GRBL with a CO2 laser? You won’t have the control you need over the low end, unfortunately, so your only real option is improving the acceleration.
On GRBL-LPC and on newer versions of normal GRBL I think there’s an option to set the low-PWM output value, IE, when the beam is enabled, or S is not zero, the PWM output will be some value that you set, which allows for better control over that low cutoff point.
Yes, GRBL on a CO2. Yes, it’s a problem I have had from day one and improving the mechanics on my to do list! Thanks for the tip on the newer GRBL versions. Do you happen to know what version that would be? I am running an Arduino Nano board at the moment with 1.1F. Hoping to update to C3D board in the near future.
I think 1.1h has it, but I haven’t played much with the newer versions of GRBL. I know GRBL-LPC has it, and Smoothieware has a min firing threshold too, so the C3D board would have that.