Hi everyone -
I hope you are all having a great day. Yes - I looking to ask some very basic questions - and I hope rather than any of you thinking about how stupid I might be, you think about how you once had to learn too.
I recently purchased a Thunder Nova 35 100 Watt machine, which came with Lightburn.
I work with computers everyday and very proficient in the office suite but only LIGHTLY dabble in the adobe suite. Clay whom I purchased the laser through said lightburn is the way to go and I wouldnât need anything else. I have watched every lightburn tutorial and will continue to rewatch them. But I am not going to lie - I am struggling and have yet to try anything because I am super nervous I am going to do it all wrong and hose up my laserâŚI know it is trial and errorâŚ
So I recently imported a .ai file into lightburn and was basically stuck - didnât really know what to do from that point. I traced it, but found out I didnât need to trace it because it was a vector all ready. I emailed support at lightburn who was AMAZING - they told me somethings which made total sense but I couldnât get from A to B and he was kind enough to fix it for me and direct me to you guys.
But I gotta figure out how they did want they did.
So here are my first set of questions I am hoping to get answeredâŚsorry for the long winded post but wanted to make sure you guys knew what kind of new person you are dealing withâŚ
When I imported the image back into Lightburn (after support fixed it) it was backwards. I did fix it and flip it back, but should it be mirrored on my screen? Or should it look normal on my screen?
Does Lightburn automatically know and tell you what your speed and power should be or is that something that I should just follow Thunders suggestions that they have in their media library?
I need help learning Lightburn from the ground up - what classes, videoâs, books, anythingâŚdo you suggest I do? I will keep watching videos but looking for additional help.
This is basically a side hustle for fun and hopefully some money - I plan to do tumbler and monogram signs and such.
Any help, direction, or positive feedback you can give me would be soooo appreciated!
That was @Rick you talked to on the email. Heâs good at explaining things
It is almost always helpful to attach a full screenshot of your LightBurn window showing the âthing in questionâ (no cell phone pics please) when you are asking for help.
Since he sent you back a LightBurn file, the only possibility is if you had different origins set. Where does your head home to, and what do you have set as the device origin in LightBurn? This is where screenshots help
Every laser machine is different and you will need to figure out what works for yours. If the manufacturer is providing you with values for that particular machine, why not use them as a starting point? Just know that you can very easily catch things on fire if you are wrong, so watch your machine always.
Thank you! In the future I will attache a screen shot - When I can this evening I will send a screenshot.
As for values, I will effeminately use what is available from the manufacturer.
I will send some screenshots tonight from what I send support to what I recâd back and then maybe you can help me understand what Rick did -
I know that once I get this - it will be like oh my gosh - so easy why didnât I get this sooner!
As for my question about videos / books / literature - I have printed the Lightburn Documentation file and have been reading it
The red coloring is displayed because you have âShow traversal movesâ ticked ON (shown in green). Traversal moves are the moves your laser head makes as it travels to each new location during your job. The areas marked in red indicate moves made with the laser beam turned off, while the black areas indicate the laser beam is turned on, based on your cut settings.
If you do not want these physical movements visually represented on screen, tick the âShow traversal movesâ option to OFF (will turn red).
You can also âwatchâ the âPreviewâ in action - from start to finish - by selecting the âPlayâ button (control playback speed w/slider), helping you track and manage the processing of your job.
New Question of the day! Please help!
We fired up our laser this morning and made our first sample.
1.) We set the laser to print from current position? But it doesnât.
2.) It also seems to be picking up the size from the previous job? So the frame is smaller when from the machine vs. from the software.
3.) How to get the green dot to where I want it to go?
4.) Why does the traverse line not start at the K where the current origin is and want to run - it doesnât seem to matter if we change the size it still prints the same.
Likely if youâre hitting frame on the machine, itâs framing the job already on there. If youâre framing from LB, itâll frame whatever youâre working on.
Underneath âCurrent Positionâ, thereâs a 3 x 3 grid of radio buttons. That dictates where your job origin is, or your green box as it were.
The red square is where your origin is, and thatâs where it thinks your laser is when it starts out. You can change it in âDevice Settingsâ.
Running the job from the current position doesnât mean that the laser will start cutting at exactly the point itâs at. For example, if I run this job:
The green dot represents the position of the laser relative to the job Iâm going to run. Itâs not possible for the laser to start cutting at that point, since itâs not on the circle. The Job Origin buttons change where you want the job positioned relative to the laser head when it runs, and thatâs all that youâre guaranteed - the work will be positioned on the bed of the laser as though the laser head was the green dot when you ran the job.
As Blake says, hitting the Frame button on the machine frames whatever is in the memory of the machine. Same with hitting Start on the machine. They donât pull data from the software - you would have to hit the Frame button on the software to get the right frame, and the Start button on the software will send the job to the controller and start it.
