I am engraving anodized aluminum, I have a jig that holds #8 4" diameter metal discs in the GF printing area. I am using an Adobe Illustrator artwork. File prep: I created outlines, used the GF color pallet and saved as a SVG file. Artwork opens in GF app, but when I populate the graphic a total of 8 times. When I hit print, the document gets prepped and after 6 minutes I get a message saying that my file is too large of a document to print?
Is there another way to still keep the quality of the image but decrease the document size? Would I need to convert the file to a PNG format?
If its an image engrave only then rasterising would definitely help. I typically only use an SVG file if there is some portion of the file that will get cut or scored.
When rasterizing, should it be a bit map? Transparent background.
Here’s what I think the problem is - if you are running a full bed engrave (and at that size and number of disks, it will turn into a full bed engrave) then you are limited to using an LPI of 270 or less. The machine can process a full bed engrave at 270 LPI or less.
But for anodized aluminum, to get the best results, you want to use a higher LPI. (It really does make a difference on aluminum.)
So do the bottom half first, then do the top half in a separate operation. If you need to change the colors associated with the top half and the bottom half, you can do it that way. Or you can just delete half of them, process one batch, and then shift them up to process the second batch.
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Right now my settings are:
Speed: 335
Power: 75
LPI: 340
Pass: 1
I have only been able to print three at a time and it’s killing me!!
For the most part I have been pretty impressed with the quality and detail. Just too slow, I need to have eight at a time…
Although it does seem like the laser acts differently to different colors of anodized aluminum.
The disks are going to be medals and will be given out as awards. Gold 1st place, Silver 2nd place, Bronze 3rd place, (anything after 3rd place is all bronze so we are doing different colors) Black 4th place, Yellow 5th place, Blue 6th place. Two colors I am having issues with is Silver and Yellow, seems like the laser is not etching the color…?
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You mean you can’t actually see that the laser removed anything? Or could it just be that the color underneath the top color is just too close looking to yellow and to silver to be able to notice it as much. I’ve done lots of anodized aluminum and I know that some colors just don’t produce a good contrast when lasered.
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You’re actually only removing a coating on the aluminum. The laser isn’t ever going to etch deeper into the metal. 
Yeah appears to be that.
Bump the power to Full. That can help get contrast on some of the lighter colors of aluminum anodization like silver.
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i’ve seen this. I think it may have to do with different batches having different thicknesses of anodization. The settings I used successfully on some very cheap anodized carabiners did not work at all for the anodized dog-tag blanks I got from a different supplier. And then Hard-anodized was a whole other story, requiring several passes and still very hard to see.