Bottom up engraving?

#1

Hi folks! I’ve gotten to do a little dabbling with a friend’s Glowforge, but I’ve finally ordered my own, and so the real n00b questions begin now. There’s a ton of great information here in the forums, but I haven’t been able to find the answer to this one; apologies if I missed it somewhere.

I’ve been looking at the dual-layer acrylics that Inventables offers (e.g., this one. Most of their instructions and suggestions make sense from what I’ve learned about the GFUI, but they also suggest the following:

"Bottom Up Engraving: Change the orientation of your laser to begin engraving from the bottom of the material upwards. This simple process will minimize the amount of residue being exhausted over previously engraved material which can re-deposit on the warm core and make clean up difficult. "

This doesn’t look like something I’ve found a setting for in the GFUI. Is this something the Glowforge can do? If not, has anyone used these materials successfully with a Glowforge? Any additional recommendations beyond those that Inventables provides?

Thanks!

#2

The GF already does that by default.
(Oops sorry Dennis, didn’t see you till too late.)

#3

This is not user-selectable, but GF does “bottom up” engraves as-is. That being said, the info from Inventables assumes that the air assist is also from the “bottom,” which is not the case with your GF – it’s from the “top.”

#4

Thanks for the quick replies!

As far as the air assist, any suggestions as to how to account for that in the GF? I found what look like some good suggestions here, so I suppose my best bet is to get a few sheets and experiment. That’s half the fun, right?

#5

We don’t have control of the air assist either. :smile:

There are quite a few people who have successfully cut the two-toned acrylics and they have posted the suggestions in the “Beyond the Manual” category. Just do a search there and include the word “settings” in the search.

#6

I’ve had good results using the 2-pass method that I mentioned in that thread. Also, take a look at this thread which talks about smoothing the results of acrylic engraving.

#7

Ah, good…another thread to review! (Sometimes I feel like I just need to bookmark the entire forum and everything in it.) Thanks, @jbpa!