Setting Laser Cutting Sequence

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EDITED TO INCLUDE ANSWERS

I have yet to receive “the email” to get my GF.

Will we have the ability to manually sequence feature sort order, e.g.: being able to specify what gets cut in which order?

Answer is YES, we can sort the order. Based on a RGB color sequence set in the GFUI menu on the left.

Will this stick with or be embedded or attached to a design? Will we have to always manually set this order / sequence?

Yes and No. YES, The settings will stick if your making multiples of the same design. NO, the settings won’t stay if you close it it and reopen it.

Cut sequencing has been recently updated to cut Inside to Outside! This is good news.

It is less than ideal to have to open the printer to weigh down the workpiece to keep it from moving.

I noticed in this video that the cut sequencing is incorrect. The GF cuts the external profile first, thereby releasing the material that will make the final product from the rest of the workpiece, then tries to cut the remainder of the internal features.

I have experience with metal shop commercial production 3.5kw cnc lasers, and in the shop we ALWAYS cut the external profile LAST, after cutting internal features smallest to largest, while proceeding in a clockwise or counter clockwise direction.

I believe in the video the guy just tells it to cut all, instead of engrave the inside, with a profile (outside perimeter) cut, however even with cutting the part profile should be cut last. This way the portion of raw material that will make the final part will be held in place by the remainder/unused part of the material (what I would call the sheet/blank).

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The operations are populated in the side bar, and are accomplished from the top down but you can drag and drop them to configure the ops to your liking.

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@PrintToLaser Sounds good. Is there a way to save these settings? Will they automatically loaf when a design is loaded?

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To be able to order them they have to be different colours. You can’t save anything but the default order is by increasing numerical value of RGB.

I notice the founders ruler always cuts the outside first and then the V shaped chevrons. They are all the same colour so you can’t change it. The GFUI should always cut from the inside out but doesn’t seem that clever.

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The thing that concerns me is that BY DEFAULT it appears that it cuts the profile first, and features last. Which is backwards.

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You can color code at design time but I always forget to use them correctly. It takes all of 3 seconds to order 5 or 6 elements by dragging up or down in the GFUI.

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It doesn’t, I’m not sure of the priorities but the color seems to be first. Make one or the other of these a part of your workflow and all will be good.

  1. color code everything at design time (there are listings here somewhere)

2)drag things into the order you want them done in.(takes 3 seconds)

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Once saved, does the GF remember the sort order?

Again I get their silly yet simple RGB sequencing. That seems cute and trivial to me. On larger more complex parts I see that being a problem.

I’d much rather have it compare feature path lengths and go shortest path to longest path, give you a preview, and then let you pause position to adjust sort order at that feature, etc.

The RGB sequencing seems really really ugh. And that’s being nice.

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There is no save in the GFUI.

There’s not even a spoon.

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@markwal is correct but only between sessions, if you want to do 28 of something just changing the material between jobs it will retain for that.

For simplicity, you should combine your cuts and scores and engraves as much as possible. I’ve never had more than 6 elements on the left at any one time.

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The company is well aware of our desire/need to save cut order and other manual settings. One of the most oft requested features. Surprised it hasn’t been implemented yet but have little doubt that it is on the priority list. Same thing with folders.

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I’m hoping they’ll prove you & I wrong and implement these features sooner than later.

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Oh, I believe it will be sooner, if only from the hints about coming S/W updates. I suspect camera alignment, calibration bugs and error messages might take precedence but the others mentioned are always high on the user list. The S/W team is far larger than it once was and shouldn’t be as bogged down with manufacturing solutions as it has been, so expect that user friendly S/W updates will be more frequent.

But that’s only based on the fact that their have been a number of S/W updates that have improved the experience of late.

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I’ll be looking forward to being able to save cut order and color order settings when they have the time to finish them, however, I should also note that that’s not actually a feature you run into too often on other lasers – on the Trotec at the Foundry, there’s a pre-sorted list of colors that you can’t rearrange, so you just have to check which available colors come in what order and set your colors accordingly. It’s not too bad, it only adds another minute or two if you have your colors grouped into layers already, and eventually the color order sticks in your head. Plus, I’m usually using no more than 3 colors in any given sheet, so if two of them are red and black (I always remember these two at the top of the list), then I’ll just designate the third one green, blue, or something else if I can’t remember the rest of the sequence.

As for power/speed/frequency settings, it’ll save those as separate profiles, but I always tend to write mine down in my notebook anyway (since everyone inevitably monkeys around with other people’s saved setting profiles by accident anyway, meaning you may come back to a completely different set of settings than you saved originally). One of the pitfalls of working in a makerspace I guess.

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The issue of ordering outside-in and in-outside has been discussed before. I’ll hunt for the posts later today. Summary was that their experience was that it didn’t matter. They would cut their test samples both ways, and they couldn’t tell the difference in the final product. Which isn’t to say that there could be instances were it would matter. I also seem to remember that they recently changed the default ordering to go from inside to outside - I’ll look for that post as well. Of course someone with a unit can test this rather quickly.

One must also remember their target market, and it’s not the people who have long experience with laser cutters or CNCs. This affects the decisions they make.

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My experience is that cut sequence does matter. Regardless of experience or not, having the profile cut first, then having the part laying lose on the cut table will lead to it moving around. Perhaps only a bit side to side if heavy enough, however if paper or anything light enough, it’ll get disturbed by the fans and potentially result in a failed cut, as evidenced in the video shown above.

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Yep. They did that a while back.

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Thanks Jules, I was hoping you’d chime in.

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I just wound up using that in a big way on a lacy sort of design with a bajillion little inside cuts, so it was fresh in my mind. :smile:

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I edited my first post to help others who are searching for quick answers. FWIW I did search prior to posting.