A Jig for Laser Cutting
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- Опубліковано 2 лип 2024
- Sometimes a jig for laser cutting is a crucial workshop tool for mass-producing your products. This is especially important as we enter the holiday seasons of Halloween and Christmas and your laser-cut products need to be shipped in volume.
In this video, I will show you how to design and use effective jigs for laser cutting many objects at the same time. This will show you how to accurately align your jig and quickly create many copies of the same items.
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►►►► VIDEO CONTENTS
0:00 Introduction
2:00 Jig Design
7:11 Laser Cutting the Jig
8:35 Using You Jig
13:14 Final Tips
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Perfect timing like you said for holiday productions. Thanks!
Glad it was helpful
Another gem! Thx.
My pleasure!
Thank you , Steve
Happy to help
Great video Steve. I just ordered my Ortur LM3 and I'm binging your videos for tips, tricks, and ideas. I'm a newbie and already learned a lot. Cardboard jigs and magnets just to name a couple. 👍👍👍👍👍
Nice! Im happy to be useful on your journey
Awesome. Great video!!! 👍
Thank you! Cheers!
Thank you for the video buddy
Any time! If you want to see other topics covered shoot me an email. This one came from a viewer and those are the most valuable videos to create.
Thanks for your help with this! I just purchased my first engraver and waiting for it to arrive.
Glad I could help!
Steve, you are da Man!! Thanks for making this video! Doing one-at-a-time was not going to work, AND, I have my very first order (if I can master this)!
Happy to help as always. Let me know how it works out 😀
you can also create the original circle and art and then duplicate all of it to save alignment and copy/paste steps.
Sure. Do whatever is easiest for you.
Hi Steve, I am very new to the laser engraving world, in fact I have ordered the Sculpfun S30 Pro, which will be my first laser. I am watching all the different tutorials on lasers and Lightburn, so that I will have some idea of what to do when the laser arrives. Your tutorials have helped me a great deal, so thanks for that sir. BUT this tutorial might as well have been in Japanese, because I did not understand any of it. Just my opinion by the way, please keep up producing your tutorials I like the way you instruct. Thanks again for all the work you put in producing your tutorials.
Hi Russel, welcome to the maker world. Thanks for the feedback since my goal is always to teach. However this is a more advanced topic so hang in there and it will make sense when you need it. Second, this video is for CO2 laser setup, so it’s going to be quite different from how you would do this with a diode laser. Maybe I should do one of these for diode lasers
@@SteveMakesEverything Thanks for taking the time to answer me Steve, as you say the diode laser tutorial would probably make more sense to me mate, even though my knowledge at the moment is limited. Thanks again sir, stay safe.
Thanks for all your videos! I bought a Muse 3D a few months ago. Your channel has been my best source for info. I have been searching and searching for a video on daily/routine maintenance. Could you do a quick video on simple things like vacuuming out the machine, how to wipe the mirrors or any other things we should do on a daily basis. I have looked all over the FSL website but the stuff they have is outdated or nonexistent. Most of their videos are not very detailed either. I have simple questions like is it ok to move the gantry while the machine is off or will that knock it off track? How do I reach the mirrors to wipe them around the big 3D camera? If you've already made a video on that could you give me the link? Thank you! Also, a very detailed video of any maintenance that involves getting into the machine or more monthly or yearly maintenance.
You got it, though I did cover this in a laser alignment video a while back, but yes you can move the gantry when the laser is powered off. Anyway watch this video ua-cam.com/video/tGOv1XMFhNU/v-deo.html
Steve,
You videos are amazing, i recently purchased a FSL Muse Titan and have had problems with it from Day 1. Demos and instructions from the FSL site are really poor compared to other laser manufacturers. i am so glad you are help the community out with your FSL video examples. Steve have you had any luck with engraving Glass with your FSL Laser and if so what settings would you recommend?
Many Thanks Again
Prakash
Thanks Prakash. Yes I have engraved glass. The settings will depend on your laser so you'll need to work them out for yourself, but generally start with lower power and higher speed and gradually adjust until you get the effect you want. I did a video about the rotary attachment where I engraved wine glasses - take a look at that for some tips, though a Titan has much more power than a Muse 3D so you'll definitely need to scale that back.
BTW, when laser engraving on glass you will get lot of little shard artifacts, so you will probably want to lightly hit the engraving with a soft rotary bush to remove any remaining shards (avoids potential hazards later). Wear safety glasses when doing this of course.
Excellent video! Could it maybe be a good idea to drop the discs in the template before aligning it perfectly? Thanks a bunch!
The point of a jig is to make dozens of these without resetting position. When I use a jig I will use either tape or magnets to keep it in place and then will periodically check positioning to make sure it isn’t moving
You made it look so easy but not using lightburn makes it to difficult for me.
You should be able to do this with any laser. What are you using?
@@SteveMakesEverything I have the Elegoo Phecda diode laser.
@@Optikification Jigs are tools that will save time with your Elegoo too. A little time designing a jig can save you a ton of time when you are making things in volume.
Hi - thanks for leaving in "one of the mysteries" of working with lasers. If you sort it out, please put the answer up! I'm getting to know my FSL Muse Titan more each time I get a chance to work on it (busy time at work right now). If you had used the camera to align things on the template, would it have been accurate, or would it also have been off just a bit? My Titan has the camera, but I haven't had much of a chance to use it. I DO, however, have several copies of your Hello World test piece (from the "Your First Day with RE3" video - so if you know of a market for them... kidding... Thanks again for these videos!
Happy to help and I’m not afraid to show to bloopers😉. Still not sure what is happening there that caused Rudolph to be absent. Sometimes images pulled from Google images can be a bit dubious - they look fine but don’t render correctly.
Btw this alignment technique will actually be more reliable and accurate than the built-in camera. If you can find a market for Hello World signs I’m happy to set up a partnership 😀
I would be interested in knowing why this happen with the missing items. It has ruined cost products of might because of this problem. I like your videos.
So you have seen this problem? Given that it is the same image in each position it pretty much forces the problem to be a bug in RE3 and FSL should be made aware.
I will be honest with you though, I rarely do volume production and this was the first time I've seen this issue, so I never got back to it to find out why. The image I started with here was a JPEG file and I normally use PNG format files, it could be related to a particular image format.
Perhaps other RE3 users have seen this as well?
Thanks for the video. I just got my XTool D1 10W and found your channel. I followed your video and it was extremely helpful to a newbie like me. I am trying to do some 4 inch round coasters so I created a template with targets and 4 inch cutouts. All good. Then I put all that into a tool layer and drop in a coaster. I set up the text so that it is H-centered and V-centered on the coaster I want to create. I use the targets and absolute coordinates to make sure everything is set and hit start. The laser moves to the correct coaster area and it is vertically centered correctly but it is starting the text too far to the left, not in the horizontal center. I'd appreciate any help in figuring out what I am doing wrong. Thank you
One other note. When I use frame, the framed area looks like it is centered both horizontally and vertically but when I hit start, it moves to the left and starts putting down the text too far to the left.
Hmm, maybe this is some weirdness in Lightburn. Make sure you are engraving the font you think you are. If you created your coaster somewhere else and it uses a font that isn’t on your machine, lightburn will use its imagination to pick one. Vector fonts tend to be a bit weird sometimes.
Alternately convert your design to a bitmap image and engrave that to see how it does.
hey, I really love ur content, helps me a lot :) just subbed, but sadly I struggle to make profit from this laser and get orders eh :(
Well I'm not sure what your business model is but if it isn't working then find another one. It's very hard to make money sell the sames things as everyone else on Etsy. Try finding work doing custom projects.
@@SteveMakesEverything yea im trying but people not even ask about product :(
@@SteveMakesEverything I just want make some extra 15-30$ heh :D but this seems hard as f*ck
@@patrykobrat Is it the right product? Have you cast your net wide enough? Some things are great ideas, but appeal to much a more diverse audience to you need to think globally, but sometimes it's just not the right product so you need to find something else.
@@patrykobrat Indeed any business isn't easy and requires determination. Hang in there and things will pick up - it can take a long time for the word to get out.
New to this. Is the advantage that you can precut the disks and then just drop them in thereby saving cut time?
The shape of the things you are trying to engrave is irrelevant. It's all about engraving in volume. Set up for cutting is roughly constant regardless if you are engraving 1 or 20. This lets you reduce the time to engrave a bunch of items dramatically
@@SteveMakesEverything but why not just make a file with the amount of discs that would fit on your workspace, and Cut them at once? Would that take more time in the Long run? I imagine that you don’t have to set up for very Long when it’s a full sheet?
I’m also new in this, and is just wondering.
@@teitass It's a good question, and certainly if you were cutting the general outline yourself then definitely you could create a single image with as many items as you need and cut them out while engraving. It is a lot more memory efficient to use a jig and simply clone your image into each slot, though it is doubtful this would be faster.
However, what if you are engraving onto something you buy rather than cut out yourself? Many people buy off-the-shelf items for engraving. They do this for a number of reasons (e.g. Engraving onto materials that the laser can't cut. Or engraving onto items that are cost prohibitive to make on your own)
One thing I have learned is that there are usually multiple ways to solve a problem when working with lasers, but sometimes you just hit a wall and a jig can save you a bunch of work and time.
What magnets do you use?
Nothing special. Just whatever discount magnets I can get on Amazon or at my local HomeDepot
Why wouldn't you cut the outline first, then move it to the upper left of your bed before cutting the circles? No need for alignment then, just place the template at top left every time you use it. Or am I missing something? Great video as usual Steve 👍
If you are engraving images then you often need more space on the sides of the workspace for the head to slow slow and change direction. Sometimes you can get away with. Using a known physical location but don’t count on it. You will also find out that on many lasers the workspace fit isn’t precise and flop around a bit so the location you think is known, can actually move around a couple millimeters in both directions
@@SteveMakesEverythingThanks for the explanation. I get it now. I'm new to lasers, but have extensive experience with cnc machines, which don't have this issue of overscan. Lots to learn by the look of it 👍
is there another way to down load the file besides github?
There is only a single SVG there. Once you click on the file you will probably see the actual image displayed. Right-click on that and save the image file to your local system
This BTW is one of the reasons I switched away from GitHub. Unfortunately it means I needed to expand my web site service, which costs a bit more and is what memberships help pay for.
Is there any issue using copy right images?
There certainly is if you plan to sell them. Depending on the owner they might allow you to use images free for personal use or they may char a nominal fee if you are selling in volume. Never use a Disney image for anything though because they will eagerly try to sue you. There are many horror stories from people who sold things with mouse ears on them.
@@SteveMakesEverything thanks