Hi everyone - I’m a newbie to the engraving world and got everything up & running with my Creality Falcon 22W laser + Rotary Pro. I’ve watched all the YouTube videos for full wrap tumblers, messed with all the settings and after trying different things for hours and scouring the internet for my specific issue… I’m still at a loss.
The laser is engraving tons of lines (I’ve adjusted power settings, I’ve focused the laser properly, I’ve adjusted speed, etc) and it’s not even engraving the entire project (it’s done in 20 seconds) and I don’t even know what I’m looking at…. Please help
I’ve attached the photo of what I’ve been trying to engrave just to practice & see what happens since the full wrap wasn’t originally working either and resulted in the same outcome (also attached)
Note that I’ve followed all the measurements for the “working space” of the size of tumbler in order to do a full wrap. Framing does just fine. When I preview it shows everything going as it should but as soon as I “start” it’s just all over the place. I do also connect via USB to the laser, not TF card, if that makes a difference.
It seems that the files I try to engrave are being “stretched” as I can see part of the guitar on one side of the tumbler but it’s huge, I tried another file and shrunk it down and it still engraved large… any tips?
First thing I see is you’re running in line mode rather than fill. Definitely not recommended to run in line mode on a roller rotary and less than ideal on a chuck. There is too much back and forth movement that leads to slippage. You don’t say whether this is a roller or chuck rotary.
Second, I would guess that your rotary setup is wrong. You need to get the rotary set up properly before you can expect good results.
Tell us what rotary you’re using. Show the Rotary setup screen.
Before ruining another tumbler to testing, wrap this one in painters tape and perform your tests at low power to only mark the tape. You can rewrap multiple times until you get things set up.
Now that I look at the cup again, it has the guitars but they are stretched and overlapping each other instead of being on opposite sides of cup. I’ve tried shrinking designs and it still stretches them. My goal is a full-wrap tumbler. I will test out the designs on the testing materials Creality sent with the laser and see how that goes.
First of all make sure your rotary is hooked up to the y axis I do not use the rotary setting on mine also do not use svg files its too much moving for the rotary to stay aligned try using jpeg or similar file and make sure your x axis is moving back and forth and the rotary is not try doing the images seperate as well
Thanks for catching that, I didn’t even think since I’m just doing “outlines” I didn’t think to fill. I will change that and see if it helps the issue.
Rotary was setup following the directions on this video https://youtu.be/gm6hGFd0Ykk?si=pDpJbbpQHvQE-7nT since she has the same laser just a step above & the Creality Rotary Pro (Chuck rotary). It’s a plug & play and it’s parallel as it should be, framing works perfectly.
Yes I know of the tape trick, this was just a cheap tumbler with an already-broken handle so figured to try and then use the tape trick going forward.
The guitars came out but they ended up stretched and overlapping each other (see other replies), so trying to figure out why that’s happening when they should be on opposite sides of the cup and not so enlarged
Getting the spacing down on a rotary object is an advanced topic. Practice getting a single guitar engraved where and how you want - then we can help you with placement.
You can use the same practice cup over and over again - just make the item small and a solid fill so you can track which changes in the variables are getting which results. I have a shelf full of screw-ups that become test pieces.
To help you with the screen shots
Press SHIFT+WIN+S to open the snip tool. Draw an outline over the part ofthe screeen that you want to capture, then go into the reply box and press CTRL+V to paste.
Thank you very much for the tips!! I’m working on the full-wrap design on a flat sheet they provided with the laser to see if it comes out okay.
I work from home and have 2 little ones so apologies in any days of delays in responses lol. I will move back to the rotary with one single guitar and play around with it to see what’s going on. Will go from there and provide updates as I have the time to test things! Thank you for the windows tips as well, I’m not savvy at the different buttons yet lol
I did my design on a flat surface and all came out exactly how I wanted. I did “line”, not fill, as the fill filled in a lot of things I didn’t necessarily want filled. But obviously will do that option if that’s what makes the rotary come out.
Gonna move to the rotary now and play with simple designs
My suggestion to use Phil on your rotary was for your test object. It makes it easier to track exactly which item was the test run. Now that you have success on the flat surface, now we can move to rotary and have more improvement, easier :-). On your test cup, just do one small little object until you get that object done right. You can use a small circle or a small square. I keep stressing small, so that your test couple last a lot longer. If you try to do a large object you will cover more of the cup and reduce the number of attempts you can make on the same piece. Does that make sense to you?
So I’ve now moved to the rotary to play around. Seems to be working just fine. I did a “line” flower and then “fill” for the same flower. I will say the “fill” definitely turned out cleaner. My issue with that, though, is that I don’t necessarily “want” certain things filled. Most of my full-wraps will be lyrics and song names that are all just outlines but obviously if filling is the only way to make it look good then I will succumb lol. Any advice on that?
Just geared towards different artists. What’s the best way to figure out sizing of each individual “art” piece on the working area of each size of tumbler? I followed the directions from others on YT who have my laser and did full-wraps as far as the “working area” sizes but everything seems to stretch and look wonky.
Hi again…. Does anyone know why this particular one got lines in the engraving? I’ve used the same settings / power / speed for every cup but switched to a different brand and this happened. Any suggestions
