Engraving Technologies

There are a set of technologies for engraving in EagleWorks, help you get better laser results.

Processing Image

As we talked about in Important Concepts, you should map colors to different densities in order to express them better when laser engraving an image.

Click Bitmap handle in the pulldown-menu Handle or click to process image in EagleWorks.

If the option Import image to RDImage is not checked in the page Import/Export of the settings, the dialog Bitmap handle pops up. We recommend to use the halftone function to process the image. Check Dither, check Net graphic, set Frequency (number of halftone shading dots to compute per inch), and click Apply to view to preview the result, then click Ok to confirm.

Otherwise, the software starts the tool RDImage.

There is an intuitive workflow in the tab Picture Processing on the right side, just follow the instructions. You can crop the image in the Step 1, adjust brightness and contrast, mirror or flip, or rotate the image in the Step 2.

In the Step 3, choose the material, check Invert to invert the image if necessary, and click Application to see the processed image, then click Simulate to preview the expected results on the material.

Click Quit Simu to quit simulation, click Import To Laser Software to confirm if the result is good, otherwise, click Original Pic to go back to the original image and adjust the processing, then apply and check again until you get a good result.

Engraving Correction

Laser engraving involves high speed moving of the laser head. In this progress, laser should be triggered simultaneously with the position control. But unfortunately, there must be some timing difference between these two execution subsystems. In a result, each scanline will shift a little with its ideal position, which will be even worse in a dual-direction engraving, and you will see jagged edges, shown as below.

In this figure, the black line represents the ideal position of a scanline, the blue line is the real position of a scanline from left to right, and the green line is the real position of a scanline from right to left. In this example, laser is triggered a little late than the position control of the laser head.

The simple way to solve this issue is to use single-direction engraving by choosing X_unilateralism in Scan Mode in the job settings, refer here for more details. Every scanline will shift the exact same and align with each other. But in this way, it will take much longer to finish the job compare to dual-direction engraving, because the laser head travels back instead of engraving back.

EagleWorks has a setting to correct offsets in dual-direction engraving to balance quality and efficiency. To use this function, you need to measure the response of your machine at a specific speed.

1. Draw a rectangle in 80mm x 10mm, set it to engraving at the speed of, for example, 400mm/s, and set Interval to 0.5mm.
2. Laser the rectangle on a cardboard.
3. Measure the distance between the ends of the scanlines.

Click System Setting in the pulldown-menu Config.

In the page Optimize, check the option Scanning(Reverse compensation) to enable the engraving correction, and click the button Add… to add an entry for a specific speed.

NOTE

The reverse compensation value could be minus, depend on your laser.

Enter the speed and reverse compensation values, click Ok to confirm. You may need to do this multiple times, making minor adjustments to get a clean result.

Machine Settings for Engraving

There is a set of machine settings for engraving, which affects all jobs, saved in the laser controller. You can read it from the laser if the machine is connected.

In the tab User of System Work Plat, click Read to read the settings form the laser.

The settings are in the section Sweep parameters in the page Processing.

Before making changes, make sure to click Save to save the current settings in case of errors. If you have a presets file from us, click Open to read it and update the current settings. Change the settings only if you know what you are doing. After changing the settings, make sure to click Write to update the settings in the laser.