When using flood fill on a galvo, the detail this setting can produce on small features is astounding but the finish is something that needs help.
Currently, an object fills in most of the object in one direction and then comes back in another direction to complete the job. That change in direction leaves a wonky finish.
I would like flood fill to maintain the same direction for the entire object.
If there is a workaround I’d love to hear about your approach.
Otherwise, I’d love to see this included in a future patch.
It’s in the nature of Flood Fill to jump around and change direction, for the sake of speed and efficiency.
If you want to ensure there are no direction changes, try turning Flood Fill off. You can also disable ‘Bi-directional fill’. That will guarantee your laser only scans in one direction.
Thanks JTR.
Flood fill on a UV marks tiny details a lot better than other settings. Another UV galvo user told me he sees this on his UV but not on other fibers so I need to add ‘UV’ in my description above.
When using flood fill, using Bi-directional fill, or Crosshatch didn’t help.
Toggling Bi-directional fill won’t have any effect with Flood Fill enabled, but with Flood Fill off you might see a different/better result.
When you first setup your UV in LightBurn, did you import the markcfg7 file from your EZCad folder? If not, it’s possible your timing settings aren’t dialed in, and you’re seeing differences in power output from Flood Fill and normal Fill for that reason (the on/off behavior of the beam is a bit different). I’m not sure why else you would see a difference in detail between standard and Flood Fill mode.
When you first setup your UV in LightBurn, did you import the markcfg7
Yes.
…it’s possible your timing settings aren’t dialed in…
I think my jump delay is off…I’m re-doing all of my timing/delays now.
Would flood fill be less effected by timing/delay/jump settings being off?
JayMac doesnt see this difference on his non-UV lasers but he does on his UV.
Could it be just a UV condition?
Flood fill shows superior engraves. Nothing is off but the banding.
Flood Fill will run the beam constantly over longer stretches, so it could be less susceptible to Off/On timings affecting power output, which could have an effect on quality/detail. But it could also be more susceptible to artifacts from poorly tuned jump timing settings. Since UV works differently from most other Galvo lasers, it’s possible there’s something specific to them that is contributing to the banding issue, though I will say I have not seen other reports of this, other than yours and JayMac - it’s also possible a different frequency/pulse width combination would yield a better result. I have not spent a lot of time working with UV machines myself.
My jump delay settings were off. It’s a night and day difference.
I used a regular fill setting and love it.
Thanks, I appreciate your response.
Close this thread!
jbc
After having my timing delays and jump timings set (huge difference) I still see the banding.
Its most noticeable on metal business cards.
The metal business card pic, shown here is a single job that I rotated on my desk to show how the light reflects the shift in reflection.
I think if flood fill moved in the same direction that effect might go away.
After getting my settings dialed in, I’m not sure I’ll use flood fill but it would be interesting to see what happens if the direction wasn’t changed.
I only have a UV laser so can’t check this on other machines.
jbc
(ignore the area of the top left that shows some irregular stripes. That hit a spot previously engraved on a trash business card I used for the experiment).
