Tech Bravo's Blog

This is my own ‘at-a-glance’ personal review and comparison of similar Thunder, Aeon, and Boss machines, as well as some notes on after sale support. I tried to be as objective and accurate as possible. This was not rehearsed and I did not research first so any inaccuracies are unintentional.

The post My Take On The “Big 3′ High End Chinese Lasers With US Support appeared first on LaserGods.com.

Here is a basic overview of why focus is important. Some of the details in this video are specific to a certain series of machines but the principles apply to most CO2 gantry lasers.

 The post The Basics Of Focus appeared first on LaserGods.com.

This is a Gravograph LS100 circa Y2K with a Synrad Firestar v30 RF tube. This is one solid machine. The entire frame is cast and milled. The entire laser is highly proprietary and reminds be a lot of my ULS25e.

I found this nearby and bartered for it hoping I didn’t have a big paperweight. I looked it over, cleaned it up, and powered it up. And…. the controller came to ready and it homed 🙂

X, Y, and Z axes all jogged via the controller but there is much to be done to the motion control systems to get it right. I got the driver loaded, sent over a windows test page (yeah, a windows test page LOL) and i got a raster engrave!

The optics are shot as are the air assist lines, everything needs adjustment and alignment, and lots of TLC but I think it will have quite a bit of life left in it. This would be superb for those thinking about a portable rig. Its solid as a rock.

When I get it all dialed in and figure out how to fire it so i can take a caloric power reading, I will update the article.

More to come…

The post Barn Find Gravograph LS100 appeared first on LaserGods.com.

So I tweaked a few settings and came out with this piece. This was done in LightBurn and lased on a stock Thunder Laser Nova 35-80. Tell me what ya think!

The post 3D Relief Engraving – Attempt 4 appeared first on LaserGods.com.

This video covers my workflow for 3D engraving from start to finish.

The post 3D Engraving Workflow Start to Finish appeared first on LaserGods.com.

I was fairly certain this would not come out very well so I didn’t even document the process but it exceeded all of my expectations. I will do a follow up video soon and go through the entire workflow. Whatcha think? Stay tuned for more!

The post My 1st Attempt at 3D Engraving appeared first on LaserGods.com.

This is the third in a series of webinars focusing on lasing images on tumblers

You can download the eagle picture here:  Eagle Picture

The post Tumbler Class 3 appeared first on LaserGods.com.

This is the second in a series of webinars focusing on lasing images on tumblers

You can download the eagle picture here:  Eagle Picture

The post Tumbler Class 2 appeared first on LaserGods.com.

This is the first in a series of webinars focusing on lasing images on tumblers

You can download the eagle picture here:  Eagle Picture

The post Tumbler Class 1 appeared first on LaserGods.com.

This is a class that is for Epilog Lasers Only.  Epilog has a unique feature called “Color Mapping”  In this course you will learn the best way to use color mapping to give your engravings that POP that you need.  Also you will learn to use color mapping in other ways to speed up your engraving time. Epilog’s unique feature lets you take engraving to the next level!

Here is essential information you need to know, and what is specifically covered in the class:

Color mapping is used with the Epilog Driver Only

All colors are in RGB

Whatever color you assign to the artwork, the EXACT SAME color scheme must be used in color mapping, in RGB format

Use a white outline around artwork to split it so that there are definite hard edges around your vector art

Experiment with Speed and Power

Remember, it engraves the colors in order.

Remember to grab all the parts you want to engrave.  The laser sees these as a group.  Breaking them up is NO BUENO!!

Do Test Burns to get your settings down

The post Epilog Color Mapping appeared first on LaserGods.com.

This is a quick demonstration on the Thunder Laser Nova 35 about one way the LightBurn camera functions can speed up your workflow.

The post First Test Run With LightBurn Camera Functions appeared first on LaserGods.com.

BE PREPARED TO ADJUST THE VOLUME . THE FANS ARE FAIRLY LOUD IN THE VIDEO.

Here is a test of Thunder Laser’s Air Assist Control using Lightburn. There are 2 modes for air assist. Cut and Engrave. The 2 air solenoids are controlled with the smart board. There are also 2 needle valves mounted on the front left panel so you can adjust the flow for each mode  as well as momentary push buttons to test the flow. When you press a button the corresponding stage activates for 10 seconds.

So now you can define high (Cut) or low (Engrave) air assist by toggling the air assist function in each layer. With air OFF you get the engrave mode automatically. So for engraving just toggle air assist off in the cut settings in lightburn. For cutting, toggle air assist ON and it will choose the cut air stage.

This also works in RDWorks and, depending on the version, it may offer ON and OFF in the drop down or CUT and ENGRAVE in the current version (this is specific to the Thunder Laser version of RDWorks). If you use a generic version of RDWorks it will function this way as well. All you need to remember when applying layer settings is that air assist OFF will activate the Engrave stage and air assist ON will activate the Cut stage. This means that one or the other air control stages will always be active so there will not be an instance where you get no air assist at all.

The post Thunder Laser Air Assist Control appeared first on LaserGods.com.

This course, will show you, step by step how to prep a photo correctly so you can get fantastic results on your Generic Laser using nothing but Corel Draw and exporting to RDWorks.

Import A Photograph

Open Corel Draw in a new file and Import the photo of your choice

Re-Sample

This is a crucial part of the process. Most people think by grabbing the corner of the picture, it makes it bigger and adds more pixels. DON’T EVER DO THIS.

Image Resizing: Changing the size the image will print without changing the number of pixels in the image.

Image Resampling: Changing the number of pixels in the image.

You always want to Re Sample. Also once you have finished prepping your photo, you CANNOT resize or resample. It will ruin the picture.

Change To Grayscale

Change picture to Grayscale

Tone Curve

What is Tone Curve? A lot of people might be confused, or they might be intimidated by how a Tone Curve works, but it’s really quite simple. The Tone Curve is a powerful tool that can be used to make advanced tonal adjustments on your image

We use Tone Curve a LITTLE at a time when processing images for engraving

When you click on Tone Curve, a box will come up that looks like this

  Take your pointer and grab the line, EXACTLY IN THE MIDDLE, and move it up, ONE SQUARE

Once you click out of Tone Curve, you can see your image has a lighter tone to it

Gamma Correction

What is Gamma Correction?

Lets you accentuate detail in low contrast areas without affecting shadows or highlights. In a nutshell. It’s going to make your engrave look really light. THAT’S OK. YOU WANT THAT!

Change your Gamma Value to 3.5

See how the picture is light, but is still detailed? It’s perfect.

Unsharp Mask

Although it sounds counter-intuitive, you use the “Unsharp Mask” to sharpen an image. “Sharpening” means to increase the level of contrast between the colors of neighboring pixels. When using the Unsharp Mask, you can adjust sliders to change the level of sharpening, including the amount percentage, radius and threshold. The Amount determines how much you sharpen, with a higher value creating a stronger effect; Radius determines the how wide the edges around your selected area sharpen; and Threshold determines the color value between the adjacent pixels that you want to sharpen.

Make your percentage 500, your radius 20 and your threshold 6

That is the “POP” that the laser needs to give it that really fine detail. Now, if we weren’t sending the file to the laser from corel, THIS is when we would export the file. However since we are not, we will continue on.

Change To Black & White 1 Bit

Now is the time where we change it to Black and White 1 bit so the laser can read it properly.

Click on Black and White, 1 Bit.

Make your conversion method halftone

Angle at 0

100 Lines Per Inch

Screen Type: Line

You should get this:

Sending To RDWorks

Open RDWorks. Import the Bitmap.

Import BMP image to RDWorks

Wood fibers should be parallel to the long axis (X).

Image as well.

Rotate image 90 degrees if necessary.

Set parameters for engrave

Parameters for 40 watt power laser

Speed(mm/s): 300 Max

Power(%): 20

Interval(mm): 0.05

Material: solid birch, plywood birch

Speed and power must be chosen by experimentation.

  Here is the sample photo to upload and compare: beg-prep-wood-intro-1.jpg

    Notice: JavaScript is required for this content.

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The post COREL DRAW/RDWORKS/GENERIC LASER/WOOD appeared first on LaserGods.com.

Thanks to Clarke Henry for this observation. I learned something today.

Hey all wanted to share something i learned today, might be common knowledge but was news to me.

Both of these pieces of true 1/4″ 5 ply came from the same lumberyard, albeit in different formats (top: 5x5ft, bottom 4x8ft). The top cut really well at 35mm at 70% on a 100w reci, the bottom we were lucky if we got through at 5mm at 85%, heavy charring and even fire danger.

The black lines in the bottom are the giveaway here, that’s ply glue rated for outdoor application while top is clear for indoor, at least at our local shop. Good thing to look out for if you’re ever snagging materials in a time crunch.

The post Plywood: Indoor vs. Outdoor appeared first on LaserGods.com.

First and foremost THANK YOU for your continued support and we look forward to bringing you better information and resources in the coming year!

Okay, now the favor: If you guys click the little italic i on a few of my posts and associate the laser gods facebook page I would be most appreciative. Takes about 10 seconds and I click through it in the video.

Be sure to check back often as we are gearing up to hit the ground running next year and we have some surprises for you! Thank you again. Please Subscribe, Like, & Share. #lasergods

The post I Need A Little Favor Guys appeared first on LaserGods.com.

The main video is for basic photo manipulation. The video below the slides goes over more advanced usage. This is mainly for Epilog lasers.

Here are the slides (click to enlarge):

And here is the advanced video:

https://lasergods.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Photoshop-Lecture-1-Wood-2.mp4

Notice: JavaScript is required for this content.

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The post Prepping Photos With Photoshop for Wood (Mainly for Epilog) appeared first on LaserGods.com.

FROM THE DEVELOPER: A cheeky user asked, “I have a flat tire – should I get LightBurn?” It can’t fix a flat tire, but it’ll change one a whole lot faster than RDWorks, and time is money!

When you have the best laser engraver out there you want the best software too. LightBurn offers such greater speed, stability, and features over RDworks that THUNDER LASER now supplies a licensed copy of LightBurn WITH EVERY MACHINE!

The post LightBurn Can Change A Tire? appeared first on LaserGods.com.