Hi all,
This forum has been very useful for me so I figured I would post this question hoping someone has a simple answer.
I am trying to use the print and cut feature for a bench top that is longer than my laser bed. Trying to engrave a single sunflower along the length of the bench.
I want the engraving to be done on “fill” mode. Every time I follow the print & cut steps, obviously there is no great point to ‘cut’ the sunflower without losing the closed ‘fill’ lines. I have tried to auto-close the open shapes set to fill with zero luck. Tried making my own lines to connect the newly opened shapes with no luck (for some reason they still will not show up on preview as filling).
For example- in the LB Youtube video for this, if the mermaid were set to Fill - how would you re-close the shapes where you cut the mermaid into 3 sections, so they fill instead of cut lines?
I know the glowforge software automatically lines up the project on pass-through mode with the camera… Any chance LB will be adding this feature?
When you cut shapes in LightBurn, layers set to Line will leave an open shape. However, shapes in fill layers will be automatically created with a closed shape.
Auto-close will not draw new lines. It will only join line segments that are already perfectly aligned.
Once the lines are created and assuming they are well aligned at node ends, use auto-join to join the disconnected line segments into a closed shape.
So even though it separates the ‘filled’ shape in the preview, if I hit Start it will still fill after I ‘cut’ the shape in half using a square cut shape & added registration marks to it?
This is for a donation for a benefit so I’d prefer not to mess it up.
I’m not sure if I’m following. I was addressing how different layer types result in closed vs open shapes. What you see in preview is what will occur so I’m clearly missing something.
Can you attach the files you are considering running? Or screenshots of them? May make this easier.
here is a screenshot - the weird looking pink part on the far right, idk what that is or how it was created. it became a “group” or item that I accidentally selected and moved after doing the “cut” of the 1/2 sunflower on the left, which was set to fill. the only problem with it currently is the two center ‘petals / leaves’ are not looking like they will be Filled.
in the second image I played around with some node editing and deleted whatever the solid ‘shape’ on the right was (that was originally somehow created under the outline of the shape after I “cut” it… and it seems like it’s going to work now.
not sure what the exact solution was or what made it work, going to try burning it tonight and see what happens.
thanks for all the help, sorry if this wasted anyone’s time! However, If anyone could explain this process to me so i’m not just completely guessing and wasting time with it- I would much appreciate it!
Can i suggest you start with a much smaller scale version of this and to burn on less precious material. The approach is the same regardless.
It’s hard to say what you’re dealing with as I don’t know what you started from. The parts that were left open when you first cut this I suspect did not start as a closed shape. If it had and you cut the shape while the layer was set to fill then it should have closed automatically.
That is an excellent suggestion, thank you. Should have been an obvious thing to do, I simply was being lazy as this is a one time deal, but I suppose I will do it so the donation piece earns as much as it can for the benefit.
I will go try it on a scrap piece right now.
The original was an image, which I imported and auto-traced. It looked ok until I cut it.
Here is a verry similar Image to the one I used.
Here is a side-by-side comparison of the identical cut shape. The left was a Line layer before cutting and latter changed to Fill. The right side was a Fill before cutting. Notice that the sample on the right has auto-closed the shapes along the cut line?
Wow! Some people just make it look so easy
Idk how you did that so quick, but I had to mess with it for like 6 hours and still got sloppier results than you did!!
Mine finally closed as in the most recent screenshot I posted, but it took a LOT of node editing.
Any chance I could get the lbrn file for yours??
P.S. your advice on trying a smaller scale version saved my butt… I did not have the crosshairs for registration in the correct spot and ended up being over an inch off on the 2nd part of the passthrough. Luckily it was a scrap piece of pallet wood.
I think I fixed this (placed crosshairs directly on the line where the piece was cut in half) & currently have the first part done on the actual piece and am scared to move it through to start the second piece.
Also… Any idea why mine created the second fill layer (the weird 100% filled shapes off to the right?)
And any idea how long the burn SHOULD reasonably take if the sunflower is 15" x 48"? Currently is telling me about 1.5hrs per half, fill layer set at 400mm/s at 35%power on my 100W Red & Black China Special. It is going on a verrrry old piece of 3x16 barn beam with old white paint on it.
A lot of it is just familiarity with the tools and specific problem scenarios. But I’m sure you could get similar results if you follow the basic steps:
Make sure the Cut layer is set to Fill before cutting.
Define cutting shape
Apply cut to primary shape
This should result in a shape where the cut portions are automatically closed.
I had to recreate the file as I had not saved it but here it is attached. sunflower.lbrn2 (172.8 KB)
Again, uncertain without knowing what you started with or how you went about it.
This will depend on a lot of factors that are specific to your laser. But assuming 254 lines per inch I’d guess between 3-4 hours. At 400mm/s it would minimally take 73 minutes assuming infinite acceleration.
Thank you, you are a Godsend. The benefit dinner is Saturday and I need to have this donation done by tomorrow. Could not have done it without your help.
I will play around some more and see if I can get the results you did. … Like you said, I think I might have accidentally set it to a Line layer before cutting. Or maybe even fill+ line which may be why I got the double result.
Any chance lightburn will have different shades of grid in the future? The white is too light but the dark is too dark, for me anyways.
Also any chance there will be an automatic / camera registration feature like GF has?
I was surprised to see a dark mode added which I generally prefer. However, it doesn’t seem to work well with all the default colors of the tools. Hard to see.
If this is something important to you I suggest you look for a similar feature request and upvote it or create your own.
I’m sure there’s always a chance. I do know that I believe support for a head mounted camera was added in 1.1.00 although it’s not available currently for calibration. Not sure if the ability to handle registration marks is a part of that roadmap but seems a logical extension.
