SCANNING used to be consistent, now 'jumping around'

[Pete Cyr]

Post by Ryan Fancher » Thu May 25, 2017 10:30 am

Hey guys!

I'm in the process of making a bunch of trophies and plaques. most are around 8x10 - engraving in acrylic, cherry and maple. fun project!

I have noticed something strange in the etching with these particular projects. Rather than etching straight across from top to bottom (regardless of content), it seems to have chosen now to jump around. it'll etch a few letters here, a few there, etc. for example. in the word 'INTERMEDIATE', its chosen to etch the 'INTE' and then 'DIATE' and then come back and etch 'RME'. Its doing it as well with images, not just text. There are some small details and things that it waits until the very end to travel back up and etch.

As far as I can remember (or notice), up until this point it had normally etched straight across without regards to content.

Just so I could eliminate some possibilities, I am using Adobe Illustrator to build the images and then import into RDWorks and have tried everything to see if i can change its behavior to see whats up - i have grouped all parts, converted all parts to a compound path (which technically makes everything one big piece), and done the same in RDWorks with no changes.

To be fair, the etching has always come out great and when its finished it doesn't make a difference what order everything was in. But i thought it was strange that it chose those particular irregular paths and i'm wondering if there is a box or something i checked off and didn't notice.

Any ideas? Thanks guys!
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I take it you are not using SCAN mode - if you were, then Independent would have been my choice to un-select.
As you are cutting, I can't think of what would cause that other than your layout. You might try Edit Cut Properties or the Handle->Cut Optimize settings.
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Post by Ryan Fancher » Thu May 25, 2017 11:28 am

I am using SCAN mode actually, and never even considered the 'independent' checkbox!

I just checked the simulation and it seems to have fixed the issue. Thanks Keith!

What would be the purpose of the 'independent output' option? I can't see what reason I would have to leave it on?
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There is a bug that allows it to become checked on occasion.
It is to cut one "Object" or "Letter" at a time.

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Post by Ryan Fancher » Thu May 25, 2017 2:43 pm

i'm fairly sure i hadn't checked the box to begin with, so it does sound like a bug.

Also, while making these plaques, i did a little bit of experimentation, and the 'independent output' option saved about 8.5% total etching time! I would suspect its the culmination of not having to travel the total width throughout the whole file - jumping around saves it a little bit of non-etching travel.
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[Steve Strassburg]

What about grouping items together and ordering them like Russ did in RDWL #29 for the butterfly card? Just a thought.