So I am new to both lasering and Lightburn. I’ve been working with a client that has an 80W OMTech machine, but am pretty sure my issues are Lightburn related.
I’m not sure if anyone else has experienced, but are there any known issues with latest release Adobe CC .Ai files in Lightburn?
In the most recent two cases:
It loaded and engraved the file just fine. But trying to do scaling within the software… The result was just all off. Instead of scaling it sort of started to squish elements of the image together.
In the second case with another Ai file, the design here is more elaborate, but also fully filled in. The image ‘appears’ in Lightburn when I load it, but only as an outline, and then even after selecting the whole thing and telling it to do a fill here, the mid part of the image gets totally ignored when engraved. I would say the file has a fairly sophisticated system of ‘layers’. I’m not sure if that matters.
I am not sure if these are known Lightburn issues with Ai files and I should just use SVG or even a raster, or what ?
I’d like to confirm, concerning your scaling issue, when you attempted to scale your design, did you have the lock icon on the upper left of your screen set to the locked position? Designs should keep their aspect ratio if the lock is closed.
For your second question, can we get a screenshot of what you’re describing? This will help us better understand what’s happening.
Posting the file will help. One thing to note, when importing .AI files it is important go to general settings<file settings and make sure SVG import settings are set to 72 DPI - Illustrator.
Hi, so I had to check with client first but they gave me the ok.
So issues I was having:
With ‘Little Gym’ file, though the scaling at first looked okay (and yes I did have the aspect locked) on screen, but when I went to cut the ‘T’ in ‘The’ and the large ‘G’ in gym weren’t scaling as you’d expect, but the ‘T’ was now getting kind of pushed down into the ‘G’ instead.
For the coin file-- And unfortunately I don’t have Lightburn on my personal machine so can’t take a screen shot at this moment. But when I load it in Lightburn for the side profile of the face all you see is the outline-- And when I tried to select everything and just make the cuts as fills it worked for the text-- But the whole face section was totally ignored and didn’t get cut at all.
And hmmm… So the forum won’t let me upload .Ai files (?)
There is a list that Discourse maintains and it’s likely that AI isn’t one of them… It gives you the list of acceptable files when you try to drop or upload something it doesn’t like…
It’s relatively stupid… append a .txt extension to it, such as file.Ai → file.Ai.txt
Then the only limit is 4mb… when you are new, they restrict how much you can post …
@Marcus_Wakefield Thanks Marcus. I presume you are suggesting I do this in Lightburn itself (?) – Or before in AI ?
Yeah, and I am not sure why I was having the issue with the Little Gym file. I honestly am brand new to lasering, but have a lot of experience in digital printing.
Notable art is not mine so I haven’t looked deeply at it.
Thanks @Marcus_Wakefield / @RalphU. Unfortunately those I’m eventually training to run things won’t have access/be expected to know how to diddle in CC (or Inkscape, etc). Should I just have their art dept ship the files in SVG ? Or then what format consistently works here, at present ?
I don’t have access to Illustrator but I have opened your Levi coin file in InkScape then exported it as SVG which imports to LB correctly (I.e. without duplicated elements) so yes, SVG might be a better alternative.
EDIT:
PDF or DXF are other alternatives. DXF can introduce its own issues to do with layer colours if you’re not careful though.
Okay cool thank you. The work is actually for a personal friend whom has set this up… But I work in a different field and he cannot afford me to run this thing all day-- So it is just an honest question. Thank you for your input.
