Great suggestion!

Glad it was helpful!

Yes it’s really the realm of CNC and fiber lasers, but with the right material and some practice you can get decent results with a diode laser. It can be even more work with a CO2 since they tend not to do grayscale. The alternative would be to do what you seem to be doing by slicing layers outside of the laser and engraving then one at a time. At some point you need to throw in the towel and get a CNC so you can use the right tool for the job.

@@SteveMakesEverything Oh do I wish things were as simple as that! I wouldn't have to put on my old hat and write custom software! Fiber lasers do ok with it but still not perfect. I have a couple of 60W mopa units and to do a depth map with only 1mm or less depth is usually about 1 hour on the machine but to do a true deep engrave is up to 6 hours which ties up machines for too long and a bit costly for clients. Its cool and looks nice but I found there is more work in quicker marking jobs or deep engraves of simple logos. It is kinda fun to watch my partner rush to pick up the engrave to look at it, especially brass! I have many CNC routers up to 10HP, thats what took me down the path of 2.5D laser engrave. I do have multiple 2.5D engravings about 1/4-3/8" deep, way more detailed than any CNC router can carve, they don't make bits fine enough or one doesn't have the week it will take to run a 0.2mm tipped tapered bit. The biggest problems with CNC routers are they take 24-48 hours to run this type of job and they can't do fine detail very well. As a secondary problem on a 24 hour job they cost me roughly $2100 in operational costs. Overtime labour is expencive and the machine must be monitored. Power costs is also a bit rough at $100 / 24 hrs. This cost sets a client price at roughly $3600 / 24 hours. Too costly for most clients. Personally I think everyone should have a really cool 2.5D large door knocker on their front door and its truly worth $4000. That set me on this path where I got the costs down to roughly $800, about 22% of the router route cost. As a bonus the laser version of the carving is far more detailed and fully deals with all the complicated angles and slopes. The fly in the ointment is the complexity of the job setup and higher risk to job failure. There are also multiple materials that are being problematic and getting 2.5D tuned. Oak for example is very common on the cnc routers but just being a bear to get tuned for the 2.5D CO2 laser. I have tests that honestly look like my friends 3 year old carved it with a chocolate pudding covered rubber knife. I am working on getting that client cost down to $400 by cutting the time in half. Most of the time in the 2.5D is the removal of the bulk of the material so I started to wander down that path only to find an entire barrel of worms! Cant use a depth map to engrave away what is not there! I put my programmers hat away 15 years ago when I retired early! I don't know if my 1st mistake was retiring early or if it was getting bored and starting a company soon after! Well I did solve the bored problem! Do you know why a CO2 can't do grayscale? What do you actually see on a dark engrave or do you actually see it? I suppose that is sorta a trick question lol

@@3dtwerking324Well you've inspired me to try a 2.5D engrave on my 90w CO2, just to show what it looks like. I'll post something to my community tab later this week if I have time. In short, and certainly confirmed by your saga listed here, there isn't a perfect way to do these. CNC is probably still best, but as you've observed, there are challenges. When I do a height map engrave on CNC, I will usually start with a 1/4" end mill and hog out the bulk, then use a finer bit to get that last millimeter of material. Sometimes I will use 3 bits (1/4" end mill, 1/16" ball end, and finally a 15 degree vbit to get the finest detail. It is the fastest way that I have found (but that doesn't mean it is fast)

Just a thought. Have you tried doing a rough 2.5d engrave which is faster than the final fine one and then to do the laser engrave over the rough cnc bit?

@@Pir8Gaming361 I have done a number of cnc engraves which I then added a laser photo engrave over to add some color and shadows but not partially carve with cnc and final carve with laser. That sounds a bit tricky with power settings.

You can invert the image. It depends if you want the image raised or sunken into the material.

Thanks for watching!

One and the same

@@SteveMakesEverything okay thanks

I hope you reach some quick success with it.

@@SteveMakesEverything I finally got the crate off...LOL

You can do more passes. Fiber lasers with 20-30W are better for surface engraving (up to a millimeters. If you want to deep carving/sculpting then you really need a fiber laser with 50+ watts. If you are using a diode laser, then material matters a lot. Darker materials like black acrylic seem to work best. After that, focus on power and speed. You can always do multiple passes to increase the depth.

The very first engrave is the settings for a 30W diode laser on wood

Thank you so much 😀

✌

Welcome

You are going to need a pretty substantial fibre laser to do this - think 100W. But it’s doable

That’s only available if you have a galvo licence. For diode or co2 lasers you need to use grayscale

Sorry, I am new, do you mean : if I have licence for LightBurn software ?@@SteveMakesEverything

Yes, you can certainly do this with a 50W fiber laser, and you are lucky to have one. Your settings will probably be different though because you have all that extra power.

@@SteveMakesEverything any video how to start from

It works on acrylic and I did it in this video. Glass is a non-starter though.

Hmm. not sure what that error is or what might cause it.

Experiment a bit. Lightburn isn't what make this possible.

@@SteveMakesEverything Gonna try then. I say if i can make this work in a chinese k40 laser

Can you give me the name of a company advertising 3D Laser machines? Technically, any laser that can engrave can create projects with depth, though keep in mind this isn't really 3D, but rather 2.5D (since it can only engrave from the top surface down. Some lasers will definitely do this better than others, though. Diode lasers that can do true grayscale engraving will do this very well, though it will depend very much on the material being used as well. Assuming you are using something like metal, then a fiber laser will produce the best results.

If you can vary the pulse width of your CO2 then you can do this - sort of. CO2 lasers can’t do true grayscale so you’re probably out of luck

Indeed. The learning curve for Blender is a bit steep, but the reward makes it worth the effort.