Layered Laser Designs

Snapmaker Luban
1

Hi there,

I guess I already know the answer but I am going to ask anyway. Searching the forum did not result in a definitive yes or no.

I’ve got a layered Design (e.g. Christmas ornament with name) is it possible to put the whole design in one file and decide for the different layers (Outline cut, Name engraved) whether they should be cut or engraved? As the name is not in the center of the design I can’t just load two seperate files in luban so they align in the center. And as I would love to laser a ton of the same design with different names I really do not want to fiddle with every name until it is aligned.

Thanks in advance!

2

In Luban? No. It assigns the same thing to the entire file, so you’d have to break up the file into multiples, recenter, etc. Lightburn, however, can ungroup cuts and allow you to do cut/fill/engrave separately.

3

ok that’s what I assumed. Thanks for your answer.
I’ll have to find a workaround for now as I have to have a different setup for lightburn (it does not work with wifi but with usb, right?)

4

Correct, it can work via USB but not wifi. However, you can click save gcode, then load that file into Luban to send it wirelessly to the snapmaker. That’s how I usually do it.

1: Setup material in machine
2: Set up my project in Lightburn and export gcode to file.
3: Use the web API to find the thickness.
4: Load the gcode file into Luban, manually input the thickness, hit go.

I’ve actually got a full guide on controlling the snapmaker with Lightburn, which also includes some quality of life improvements (such as a modified firmware) found here:

If you intend to use Luban to run the gcode (since you can input the thickness directly into it). You can follow most of the guide if you want, just omit the following lines from the gcode header;

G53 ; Changes to Machine Coords.
G0 Z23 F6000 ; IMPORTANT, the Z value here is your LASER HEIGHT on the touchscreen.
G54 ; Changes back to Work Coords
G92 Z0 ; This sets Z Work Origin to 0, making your laser height as 0.
G0 Z300 ; Moves the toolhead back up out of the way.

Also check Relative Z Moves Only so it doesn’t ask a material thickness in Lightburn.