After spending North of $3000 on this product, I expected that the software to support it would be at least semi decent. Well Luban is frankly one of the least capable things out there for driving a product of this nature. It cannot even cut a simple shape out of a sheet of acrylic and every search tells me to go use some other piece of software instead of Luban. I was really hoping this product would be a great 3 in 1 solution but alas it looks like it needs to be packed up and returned.
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I can see why you’d think that, given the price tag of the Artisan. Luban’s capabilities make a lot more sense with the Original’s $500 kickstarter price.
It’s really not that hard to get started with other tools though. Cura for 3DP is very similar to Luban. Some of the recommended CNC and Laser software packages are paid, but they are vastly more capable. I use Cura, and I’ll stick to Luban for my CNC and Laser needs if I ever get around to trying them.
Snapmaker originally said they wanted Luban to be a starter tool, and easy for people new to these technologies to learn. It seems that they’re drifting away from that a bit; still trying to keep it noob friendly while making the product more capable. That’s a hard line to balance.
Would be really nice to tell us what is it you actually trying to cut and with what tool…
Trying to cut out a fairly simple shape in Acrylic.
I was expecting to be able to cut this out by just doing a contour around the outside and a contour around the holes. What Luban produced was a cut that took 20 minutes. Every motion was horizontal with the cutter jumping across the cutout rather than doing a contour around the edges. There is no way to change the Method from Carve (which I am guessing what I need to do) and asking Google for help pretty much ended with every thread saying not to use Luban and rather go buy something else. Not what I expect after spending 3k on this tool.
Unfortunately as you’ve found out, Luban is barely a beta version when it comes to cnc.
You’ll need to use another program for CAM. Fusion 360 is the most popular and free for hobbyists and can do exactly what you need. Unfortunately it’s not the simplest learning curve.
-S
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What sdj544 said, you should definitely raise your concerns with support, so they can receive feedback and Improve Luban. Please submit a ticket - Support Ticket Form
As for setting up CNC in fusion360 - check this list GitHub - shurushetr/awesome-snapmaker: Curated list of things that help you make something awesome with Snapmaker machines.
Thanks for the feedback everyone. It is a real pity as the machine itself seems to be very well built. It is missing a few things but is still a good looking machine.
I mentor a high school First Robotics team and we have been looking for a more ‘out of the box’ experience for them to concentrate on learning and building parts for robots and was hoping this would be the platform. For the cost, there is just way too much messing around the kids would have to do and considering we only have a few weeks each year to actually build the robot, messing is not something that makes sense.
I will certainly open a ticket but will, alas, have to continue my search for an affordable, more capable solution.
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This object is not how luban works (unfortunately).
You would have to draw the shape in two pictures, the outline and the holes.
You would need a reference, maybe the whole size of the two pictures, to align it
If you import you could choose the carving mode for each silhouette.
Outline for the shape and fill for the holes.
I am a user like you and no staff.
That doesn’t work. Even just the outline produces a back and forth across the part to cut the two sides. Seems mind blowing that someone even thought that this was the right way to cut out an outline.
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I feel your pain. I was finally able to do what I wanted in Fusion 360 but, as @sdj544 said, the learning curve is steep. I went through a lot of tests, tweaking parameters until I finally arrived at a setup that is doing the job.
Did you use vector setting? Wondering, i thought i carved a square this way…
Have to check in the afternoon.
Taking my STL file (which is a very common format I might add) and importing it into tinkercad.com and then exporting it as a SVG actually gets Luban to generate a sane cutting profile. It seems Luban on really supports SVG (and perhaps DXF) which is odd considering STL and STEP are some of the most common formats out there in tools like Onshape, Fusion etc.
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Yes, it supports DXF. I’ve exported DXFs of sketches in Shapr3D and they’ve imported and worked great with the laser cutter through Luban. You just have to be careful to switch the units to mm in Shapr3D before exporting.
Glad it worked for you.
If you are able to create a fusion models its only a few steps more to your gcode.
This is needed for complex carvings anyway.
Simple silhouettes are madeable in Luban.
I do pretty much all my design work in Illustrator, and then offset the paths the radius of my cutting bit. And export as SVG into Luban. The results are pretty much as expected. Example of a pi enclosure…
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@snapUser (off topic) That looks really good. Is that the 10W? I’ve just started playing with acrylic, and have been having trouble with transparent acrylic. Can I have a look at your settings?
@reesesm2000 (on topic)
Personally, I looked at the software before I bought the machine - so I knew what I was in for there. It is excellent software for it is intended purpose - a simple interface that just works. I have my 6 yo designing and printing, and lasering with it herself.
For more advanced things, we use Illustrator, Photoshop, or Fusion 360 for designing (dependent on the medium). If we need to do anything advanced for 3D Printing, we would go out to Cura, or Lasering we’d go to Lightburn. BUT even with those options on hand, I don’t remember the last time it was needed.
That’s what I suspected/read. Thanks for the confirm.
I have resigned myself to the fact that buying the Artisan was a rather costly mistake. I was really hoping I could buy a mid cost kind of platform that would save me space (3 in 1) and would allow me to concentrate on the actual design work around what I am trying to build and not spend hours upon hours of fiddling and messing about to get it doing things. The ticket to Snapmaker was a generic, you should be using SVG reply. Creality has considerably better support than these clowns. I have also recieved a badly machined clamping nut for the CNC router for which I opened another case. After entering all the details about the machine, order number etc etc into the case, the email back asked me to supply all the same information again and a note saying they need to check my warrantee to see if it covers the nut. Really poor after sales support. Think twice before buying into this platform people. The Artisan is certainly not worth it.
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