Simplified laser etching

Snapmaker 2.0 Getting Started
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Hello folks. As some of you will know, I have recently completed my first project; which entailed laser etching of wooden cubes. The process may seem complex before it is undertaken but there are a number of simple pre-requisites before you start the work. I have detailed how I have handled the initial work; in the spirit of helping others who may not be familiar with the sequence of events to be followed.

Sequence of events:

  1. Decide on the project and the associated work to be completed
  2. Gather and prepare materials to size
  3. Plan processes to be used
  4. Process vector images and convert them to jpeg images.
  5. Import jpeg images into Luban
  6. Settings adjustment in Luban
  7. Process g-code in Luban
  8. Export g-code from Luban as an .nc file
  9. Save file to USB stick
  10. Run Snapmaker from USB stick after setting the origin in the centre of your workpiece.

It is worth remembering not to use full power unless it is absolutely necessary. This will supress the edge burning and staining that is sometimes seen with laser etching of wood.

There is a short screen presentation of the events sequence and a description during the video. My example files are appended to this post. One is the letter ‘M’ in close up. This image shows how important it is to work with the grain on a piece of wood.

M completed
M completed1493×1454 1.78 MB

The letter was etched at 60% power and should have been good and dark without edge burn or smoke staining of the wood. The endgrain of this piece of pine is really much harder than the rest of the wood and the laser etching process leaves it almost untouched. Nevertheless, the letter is the one demonstrated in the video presentation so the completed image was included here.

The second image is an example of laser etching on a 100mm square x 2mm thick plywood coaster. The vector image was taken into the vector creation/editing software and placed on a page that was 100mm x 100mm in size. The image was then sized appropriately and exported as a jpeg image. Luban had no difficulty acquiring the image and the size was set to 100mm square. The dot value was raised to 10 and the workspeed was set at 1200mm/min. The power was set to 80% to try to retain some delicacy in the image.

Any comments would be most welcome. My mistake with this coaster was to forget to sand it to a very smooth finish before etching it.

tree coaster completed
tree coaster completed1722×1715 3.37 MB

Video presentation is about 12.5 minutes long… it can be found at the following link:

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Thank you for the great report.

You are making great submissions to the community that will benefit many (@Rainie , @hyeii )

Doug

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Greetings jepho ,
U did good job. Simply way to make projects thanks.
Stay safe take care.

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Thanks Doug. I realise that sometimes a few pictures are worth many thousands of words. I settled for trying words combined with pictures. It should make sense in the context of new people looking for simple explanations for simple things. Vector design software can be very intimidating to learn but my view is that simple things are simple. I start with the endpoint in mind and then look at how to get to that point. If my records of blundering through the processes needed to make stuff are helpful to other people (so that they can avoid making my mistakes to achieve their objectives) then my postings will have served their purpose. :thinking: :grinning:

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Thank you Ramesh, you are welcome. :grinning:

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Video seems to have gone missing… Help?

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Hi Jonathan; My apologies. Dropbox appears to have swallowed the video. I will learn that lesson and keep a back up elsewhere. I will make another screen presentation so that you can see the methods used.

Hold on! Have found an unprocessed copy in my screen presentation software. It will need about 45 minutes to process the movie then I will post it here for you. :smiley:

That’s it Jonathan. The file is now intact and working.

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