Luban Features Question (Inline, Vector Tool)

[liquidmettle]

Hi All,

With the upgrade to Luban 4.9.1, there seem to be a lot of features added but not a lot of literature on what those features mean or how to use them for best effect.

The FB groups have indicated that Continuous Power Mode is what Inline Power is called, but is that correct? The GitHub update for 4.9.0 makes it seem like these are different things, and if they are, I don’t know where to find the Inline settings.

Github: “Introduced inline mode for image engraving.
Introduced constant power & trapizoid power.”

My previous understanding is that an inline power mode should allow true grayscale engraving by modifying power levels - so if the laser (10W) were set at 20% power, 20% would be used for the darkest areas of the grayscale image and the machine would automatically reduce the power more as the hue lightened in different areas.

If that function summary is correct, the tooltip on Continuous Power Mode is confusing for recommending not to use it for engraves. If only used for the recommended cuts on the tooltip, what does Continuous Power actually mean in practical terms as I wouldn’t have expected (based on experience) cuts to not have had continuous power previously?

Additionally, what the heck is the S Vector Tool, its various options (offset, background, ringing, union, clip) and how does its “distance” slider affect outcome?

Thanks for any insights!!

[CandleFX]

Inline and Trapizoid are not togglable settings (that I can see) in Luban. I suspect you can get more control out of these via Lightburn, but I haven’t played with it yet. I believe these are ‘under the covers’ improvements to how the laser is tackling engraving and cutting as far as the Luban side goes. It helps with scaling the power to the laser based on the movement speed of the toolhead. Which yes, will improve greyscale engraving.

Constant Power is togglable though. This just says, “Hey, I asked you to be at 90%… could you just stay at 90% no matter what please!? Thank you Mr. Laser for your compliance.”

(Someone smarter than me/more official, correct me if the above is wrong!)

S Vector Tools… These are amazing! They are saving us a lot of time on different projects. Here is a real-world example in action:

We want to engrave and cut a Pikachu earring:

This is a flat image, so if we want to cut it, we would previously have to use one of a few different techniques to get a cutting line around the edge. But with 4.9+ we can through it into Luban, and turn it into vector mode (if it isn’t already - it has to be in vector mode to use these tools). We can then use either Offset or Background with a 0mm distance to get a cut on the same as the edge line of the drawing:

In this example, this isn’t efficient, because it will engrave the edge and then cut the same line. We could use the Mask tool to tackle this, but in our case we actually want a visible outer edge engraved. So we need the cutting line further out from the line engrave. Offset distance to the rescue! 1mm offset gives us this result (1mm is enough, because the earrings are only 14mm on the longest length:

Then we turn the original laser back to black & white, and set up our toolpaths for engraving and cutting. A little paint, and gluing on the earring studs, and we end up with the below:

Bonus note: The ‘Clip’ option works well if you DO want to cut on the outer line, and not have it engrave the same path. You would creating a Offset/Background with 0mm distance, then select the original layer, and the offset/background layer it created and use the ‘Clip’ tool. This separates the two allow you to control one for cutting one the inner for engraving. This is how the Pokeballs above are achieved.

(pro tip, don’t try sell trademark things like this online. Making them as gifts, or having them at markets/in person, different story)