AFAIK, EstlCAM doesn’t do raster engraving at all. I don’t know how well it works for laser work at all, really.
You can combine gcodes together, so if you do your Inkscape plugin and then the image2gcode, you can just run the two gcodes back to back. You just need to make sure they are aligned in software and then don’t move the tool origin between files.
I’ve printed the mounts for the laser. They fit great, still thinking about the air assist.
@SteamPunkProgrammer Do you know the power of your pump? Liters or Gallons per hour? Any cool results?
Did you find any solution about lasering images with estlcam? I think it is only the G-Code generator who must fit to estlcam. It would be fine to find a G-Code generator e.g. as a plugin who works with estlcam. Greets Lars
I have found that Estlcam can open an image file and then asks what you want to do with it. Carve, Halftone and the option “Laser”.
When you select the laser option, you get a menu and a preview of the image file where you can set image size, line thickness, power settings etc and save as a gcode file.
When I try it, I just get a solid burned block, no shading. The preview as well just shows a solid block of lines.
I have the laser set to M106 S255 and M107 but don’t think that is the problem as the Laser cuts beautifully. I just don’t seem to be able to find the magic setting that gets the image to burn as a half tone. Is it perhaps a setting I am missing? Anyone else managed to get it to work?
I cannot see any power settings on the resulting gcode except for the on and the off, nothing to produce an image. Its all X movements.
Power on, run along X, turn off. That looks like it is pretty much it.
(Estlcam Lasergravur)
M03 S0
G00 X-5.0500 Y0.0000 Z0.0000
M106 S255
G01 X-0.0500 F1920 S0
G01 X0.0500 S100
G01 X0.1500
G01 X0.2500
G01 X0.3500
G01 X0.4500
G01 X0.5500
G01 X0.6500
G01 X0.7500
G01 X0.8500
G01 X0.9500
G01 X1.0500
G01 X1.1500
G01 X1.2500
AND SO ON AND SO ON
G01 X99.3500
G01 X99.4500
G01 X99.5500
G01 X99.6500
G01 X99.7500
G01 X99.8500
G01 X99.9500
G01 X104.9500 S0
M107
End of line one
And then pretty much repeated line by line for 100mm worth of lines.
Any ideas? I have tried different power settings but the preview at least still seems to be the same.
I tried to use LaserGRBL but you cannot set the Laser on off to suit M106/M107 and that seems to be a common complaint.
Having been so happy with Estlcam for cutting, would like to succeed and combine cutting and etching.
I am using version 11.224h if that makes any difference.
That gcode makes it clear that it won’t work. I would assume there are supposed to be more M106 Ssomething commands to adjust the brightness.
image2gcode or imagetogcode are common options. I can’t remember which one is newer, with the nice developer that hung out here for a while. That’s the one I would use 
Thats what I was thinking as well Jeff. There needs to be a command that changes the power of the laser.
I don’t understand why would Christian include it if it was not working? Not like him. Thats why I was thinking it must be a “Me” problem.
I have sent him an email to see if I get a reply.
What I think you are seeing is a dithered output… not grayscale. All laser dithered output is dots… whose varying density will make the “shades” of gray you see from a distance. But the laser output is either on or off… either a dot or no dot. This is “halftone” output from Lightburn…
I wouldn’t rule out a combination :). Like there is a parameter wrong and he didn’t expect you to set it that way.
I would be looking at the setup to see what you have for turning the laser on and off. I would guess you need to put in some variable like “M106 S{laser_power}” somewhere.
Full power may give you all black how many watt laser how fast how large a picture how large is the minimum dot of the laser. all that will matter a lot
I have tried all the different programs around such as Lightburn and Laseretch and lasergrbl etc and cannot make anything even passable.
Lightburn after messing around I got an outline to sort of burn, but no laser on or off so just a continual outline of a vectorised black and white image. When I break it down and combine inners and outers etc, i tried to shade and the laser just turns off so not sure exactly what I am doing wrong there. Got it set for M106 off and M107 S255 on etc, and got it burning at 30% power.
If I just try and burn an image with laserburn, I get the same random collection of dots. No defined image
Lasergrbl does not want to use M106/M107 so thats no good. Scratch that as a useable program.
Laseretch I just get a dot to dot of the image at a res of maybe 1 dot per expected 100 so looks like join the dots puzzle. There is not that many setting in Laseretch so am perplexed at why I am not getting a result. I have tried both 3dprinter format and GRBL format.
So its not just estlcam that is an issue. I got no answer to my email sent to Christian by the way. A bit disappointing.
My guess is that somehow there is a setting I am missing that is preventing my hardware from working properly with the gcode. With Laserburn I am using Marlin flavour, and have tried Smoothie flavour, but that did not work.
Not sure if it makes any difference but I am exporting the gcode to SD Card and taking it to the MPCNC, not trying to connect directly.
dkj4linux how did you manage to get that half tone to burn? What was your settings? Obviously M106 and M107 for laser on and off, but are there any other settings I am missing?
I have tried different images at different resolutions, but mostly black and white logos to start. I have tried burning at 30% power as full power I was just getting a burned mess. I have a 5w blue diode by the way.
I am obviously being a twit, but not sure how or why. This is not that complicated surely.
You need the laser power to scale as you send different levels. M106 S128 should be M106 S255. The other thing that can cause lots of issues is any delay turning on and off.
I have sat with Lightburn now for a while and tried to play with the settings. The Default 6,000mm/min is a tad fast and most likely why I am getting sporadic dots. I have dropped it to 500mm/min and it seems to be happier, I now get proper outlines.
15% shading power is still too much though as it is burning the plywood to charcoal. I am going to try tomorrow at 7% or less and see if that helps.
But at least with Lightburn I have made progress, not sure on LaserEtch yet but I see default speed is 2,000mm/min so I am pretty sure that is not helping as well. Will play more tomorrow at 500mm/min.
Make way, rank amateur fumbling his way through.
