Hi there fellow Laser Friends!
This is my first post here, and i am glad to have found you!
Yesterday i received my K40 (red housing, tube from 7/2019).
The unit seems to be working correctly.
It easyly burned thru 4mm light wood on medium current.
I have watched about 5hrs of videos before even purchasing.
I know that there is a learning curve, but the thing is, that i
dont understand how the software works.
I ditched the software that came with the machine because i dont want to use a dongle,
so i installed inkscape and k40 whisperer.
What i dont understand is why the calculative steps (calculating greyscale?, egv data… not the exact wording i know) are repeated every time i press “vector engrave” for example.
These steps take forever on my 1x3Ghz Pc even for small svg files.
So is there a way to save just the data that will be sent to the machine so you can be quicker and more efficient?
The other thing that i do not understand is the “raster engraving” feature.
I downloaded and made some svg files and none of them could do raster engraving.
So what features does an svg file has to have to enable raster engraving?
And when is raster engraving to be chosen over vector engraving?
Is it best for photo engraving?
Many quiestions i know, but there will be more to come…
Raster engraving refers to the process of engraving an image versus just a pure vector. take a square for example. Vector engraving will produce a simple box with a thin line and take only a couple of seconds being done at speeds around 20-60mm/s roughly. But save it as an image (bmp, jpg, etc) and it will generally be run scanning left to right at speeds up to 200-300mm/s taking 10+minutes. It will also produce a filled square over just an outline. You could also have it produce a line like vector but it would take substantially more time over vector engraving. Does that clarify things for you?
Yeah thx Domm!
Ok i “understand” Vector Engraving now.
And i found out why i could not do Vector Cuts:
My red was only 254 XD
And what about the pros and cons of Raster vs Vector engraving?
And i have heared that the software from the manufacturer (the dongle software) could engrave much faster.
Do you have any experience with that?
From what ive read you cannot have both on the same OS due to driver conflicts. Is that true?
Raster and vector engraving are two different things. The raster does individual pixels whereas the vectorized stuff goes in all directions to cut vector lines.
The original manufacturer software could likely start engraving faster. You can turn off the packet pre-processing and get Whisperer to start sooner. You can also save the .EGV file to disk and then run the file directly as already preprocessed info. I know in Meerk40t I just make the raster start right away while everything else is processed in the background.
And yes, the drivers will conflict. You could switch them out rather easily if you want to install and uninstall drivers. But mostly the original software sort of sucks.