I totally understand. I haven’t worked in the Windows environment in almost 15 years, but still recall they could be resource sensitive. Definitely must stay vigilant.
Our windows machines I had at my govt job, in the early days of our LAN/WAN, were more of a turn on and go get a coffee, and maybe they’d be ready for login credentials when I got back. Glad you aren’t in that sort of waiting pattern!
Cheers
Lee
Reducing the applied power of a 60-ish W CO₂ laser using Dot Mode makes perfectly readable 1.5 mm characters on scrap CDs. These digits are in a different font generated by a different program, but the size-on-target is the same as the SHX fonts I’ve used:
Trying to draw them in ordinary vector mode doesn’t work as well, because the power can’t go low enough to compensate for the low speed on those tiny curves.
No worries, all good. Just wanting folks to be able to find your reference. 
Remember downloading text at 300 baud and reading it as it arrived?
Yeah, those numbers look like they have goose bumps!
Here is my test (first try!): 2500mm/m, 35% pwr, 10w, 3mm Baltic ply, ISO9 font. I was actually surprised at the result. Should have put a space after the “1”, no?
Dang, that 1.5 mm font is tiny. Cool seeing it used like that on an old CD. I haven’t yet found a setting that allows me to limit the power on my 55-watt Co2 laser, on leather. I was using 1% power and 250mm/s which was the max speed offered. I still have lots to learn.
Lee
Mike,
The fonts look nice. Since I’m mostly using XCS with my xTool P2, it limits the speed to 250 mm/s. Their proprietary software allows access to all of the features in my laser. I wish Lightburn allowed me to access the built in cameras, in my P2. Maybe someday.
Lee
That is almost 3x the top speed of my Sculpfun. If you are burning tiny, I doubt you can reach that speed. Your machine can do stuff mine can’t, so there is always a trade-off. It explains why some guys have one of each!
Petition xTool to play well with others. If they do not share technical details, the Lightburn team has no idea how to code for it.
Thanks for your input. I’ll definitely communicate my needs to xTool, regarding sharing both of the camera’s datastream, as well as the internal material thickness measurement data. I totally understand there is no way to write code to handle unknown data.
Lee
The link below illustrates my interaction with xTool. Skip to the second posting. I was told killing 3rd party use of the RA2 was an “engineering decision”. Good luck!
you can also mark a font as a favorite to keep it at top of font list (select font - Right Click)
Hey Mike
Thanks for the info, which I read as a solid “heads up”.
won’t be completely surprised if my request is either summarily rejected or I’m told to go pound sand. I’d say I probably have an extremely low chance of succeeding. It might be an easier sell if they weren’t using the cameras tied into proprietary systems (autofocus, as well as the system to recognize and setup their new variably non-flat lasering function). Perhaps at some point there might be a basic call allowed, to gain basic camera functions, without fear the overall handling of their integrated cameras and the “smart functions” could be at risk of exposure. Fingers crossed!
Lee
Thanks for that Chris! Another good handling solution.
Cheers
Lee
Good to know, thanks! MS Word sort of does this with last used, but it is not persistent.
Yeah LB does the same so you have Fav then Recent then normal list
Actually, there are ways to do that. It is called reverse engineering. That’s how open source software can read Photoshop and Word files, and so on.
But:
This is so helpful y’all! I’m very new to lasers and love reading this stuff! Can you direct me to a link further explaining SHX fonts, where you get them and why you would use them over regular fonts? I have an xtool d1 pro 10W laser if that matters. Thank you for your time and thank you for posting!!
Hi Marguerite
The SHX fonts are single line fonts, which are quicker to generate. I’m certainly no expert on these, but really just wanted to test the waters, with smaller sized fonts on some of my laser projects. From my tiny bit of research, it looks like they were perhaps originally used in AutoCAD, to save time in their computers (generating in their technical drawings), and in my opinion, they aren’t a necessity, but I’ve seen no ill effect in trying some of them out.
If you are wanting to dip your toes in the water, to see how they behave, I’d suggest looking at SHX Font Collection .
Best
Lee
Thanks for the info!! I’ll look into it. I like the idea of quick to generate and being able to make small print!
I’m glad this post is helping. Best of luck moving forward!
Lee
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