Glowforge not following the engraving pattern?

I set up a nice simple game board consisting of triangles. The lines between were to be engraved. When I uploaded the design it looked perfect. I started to etch and strange things happened.

If you look at the left, you see the pattern I thought was going to be etched, but look at the actual etching? I’ve rotated it 3 different ways and it always starts to just etch everything as some point, either beginning or end. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Correct me if I’m wrong but it looks like you have two of each in there. Two Engravings in to cut outs. I would suggest reopening the file, deleting the extra steps and restarting.

Actually try hitting ignore on one of the engraves and one of the cuts

I did, since I only need 3 copies. I tried to just do one at a time. If I keep it in the orientation of the left one, it works, but it I rotate it, like the right one, it doesn’t.

Here it is with only 1 copy and it still did strange things. I can obviously work arouind it bu cutting them one at a time and rotating the material between cuts, but I was just wondering if this was a known bug and what I could do about it.

Thanks

Those look like unfilled vectors that you’re setting to engrave. That’s going to make filled shapes. If you just want the lines, set them to “score” instead of “engrave.”

But if you set them to score, rather than engrave, they come out thin trace lines, only 1 kerf wide. I want to substantial (maybe 1 mm, which is the width of those wide lines) line to delineate the triangles.

Can you set the width of a scored line? I don’t think you can. Maybe set the focus higher and let the beam diffuse a bit to widen the line, but that seems like a losing proposition to me.

Here’s an excerpt from the actual PDF fine I’m using:

image

If you want wider lines, you have to use long, thin rectangles instead.

What design software are you using?

I’m drawing in AutoCAD and exporting to PDF files.

In response to the scoring option, if I print using the scored option, the preview (and final print, since i did this to try it out) looks like this:

Okay, I don’t have AutoCAD, but what you need to do in that program is create narrow rectangles the same width as the stroke lines that you are using, give them a Fill color but no Stroke or Outline color.

Engraving always happens on closed filled (vector) shapes. Strokes always default to Cut lines, and although the Glowforge interface can convert them to engraves, it might not interpret them correctly. (Which is probably what you are seeing.)

Your other option is to rasterize the engraves. Use a high DPI (>300 dpi) and the things that you want to be engraved will look identical to a vector engrave. The raster image will need to be combined with any vector cutlines in another program like Illustrator or Inkscape, but it is a quick method for making a combination SVG file.

If you can export a jpg or png from Autocad, that’s an easy way to turn it into a raster image. (Hide the actual cut lines first, I assume those will be a different color.)

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I haven’t read the whole thread so this might be a repeat, but defocusing the layers for a wider score will work. It might not be as elegant a solution as making it an engraved line though.

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Thanks a lot for the help in this thread everyone!

@mwhiteacre, have you had a chance to try the steps suggested below yet? I believe this should help you achieve the results you’re looking for.

Please let us know how it goes!

Where is the ignore button? I’m using the trace function to cut. However, I notice it has an engrave and a cut open on the left hand bar. I didn’t realize maybe it is doing both and that is why it is taking so long and also leaving messy engravings along the edge.

When you click on an item in the lefthand menu bar, there’s a fly-out menu with settings and stuff in it. Up at the top of it are the options Engrave, Cut, Score, and Ignore.

Have you gone through the Learn by Doing tutorials that were suggested when you completed the setup process on your machine? There’s a lot of good stuff in there that will help you get through these basic operational things so doing your own projects isn’t as confusing starting off. :slight_smile:

It’s been a little while since I’ve seen any replies on this thread so I’m going to close it. If you still need help with this please either start a new thread or email support@glowforge.com.