Does anyone know how to create tabs? For those that don’t know what I am referring to: Tabs are small, intentionally skipped sections of a cut that prevent cut-out pieces from falling out of the material while the laser is working. These tabs can be broken off easily by hand after the cutting process is complete. Similar to a parts tree in a model car or truck kit. Tabs can be added either manually or automatically using software like Light Burn. It works on LB but when the SVG file is transferred to Glow forge, the software is closing the gap as if its reading an unintentional gap. Here is a clip on YT creating tabs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1uWbYn_qvM
Forgot to add, I spoke to GF tech support and the rep said they don’t have this feature to try the community for any ideas. Tech said they might add in this feature on a future update and it was a good question and noted it came from a GF user.
This would really save me time in packaging my designs. Any ideas??
I’m really not sure what you mean by this. I’ve created designs with small tabs many times, I’ve never had the SVG modified when I uploaded to the glowforge interface…
This is what the tech rep told me… But so were talking about the same thing, see the picture below. These are the tabs I am speaking of. How do you create this??
Did you actually break the lines of the pieces you want to have tabs? You can’t just erase a tiny segment or put a tab box (white fill, no stroke) where you want tabs. They’ll look like they’re there but they won’t be seen by the GF. You need to actually cut the line segments out. You can do that manually or using a small box shape you paste and union so the line gets replaced by the unstroked box.
What software are you using? In Inkscape you have to break the line. This leaves a lot of open lines that might be complained about, but are needed to accomplish that goal. A blank space on top of a line will not be read by the GFUI.
A way to do that in the GFUI might be a good suggestion but it is not currently the case.
This is what I’ve been looking for!!! This definitely worked. Im going to test cut it now. Does GF give you the option to choose the amount of tabs and move them around?
I had not thought of it that way, but what you are creating is just a dashed line. Regular dashed lines from Inkscape or others transfer as solid lines without special trearment so using this tool in Premium you can have all sorts of fancy lines with dashed being the simplist.
Thats what was happening to me. I create tabs in light burn and they dont transfer over to GF. Hopefully GF improves this feature. I’d like to manually place tabs in certain areas and not in a delicate part of the piece to avoid breaking the material when pressing it out.
Lightburn likely has a gadget, just as Glowforge. The problem is that nobody has the same gadget. You can still use the hard way of actually breaking the line, or the Glowforge gadget if you have premium. If you are doing a lot of retail sales, premium can easily pay its own way.
I just create little rectangles and position them where I want the tabs to be, then use the Inkscape union command to make them all one part. Takes a couple of seconds for each one.
You’ll need to find a tool to create your design and manually add the tabs, or use the GF premium subscription feature. Many people use Inkscape or Illustrator, but there are lots of applications that can be used to design. It may take some trial and error, or maybe you can find a tutorial somewhere. Update: I just found this tutorial for doing it in Inkscape.
