ACMER S1 Portable Laser Engraver
So, I am finding that some laser engraving equipment can be a bit more difficult to control repeatability than others. Yes, technology is used to improve repeatability, but the fact is many of the lower cost equipment can use some additional help. The additional help, from what I have provided for myself, is worth that cost, than paying much much more for a laser engraver that gets you closer yet still not close enough.
Someone in a social media forum asked about mounting their ACMER S1 to a board and burning (yes, that is what we are doing, burning and call it engraving) a grid on the board for locating items / substrates to engrave. They were on the right track. I have seen on YouTube people who I do hold in high regard, rigid locate (not permanent mount) their laser machine on a waste board, then burn the grid, with units of measure and all.
Coming from a technical field when I retired, saying enough of that circular chaos, I had thought of the same thing, a grid. I researched and found a couple YouTube guys doing it, was ready to pull the trigger and copy them, then said to myself, "How many times have I followed the leader just to realize their process is still too complicated, taking up time? Is the purpose to be productive, creating burns, and does 'follow the squares' add any value?"
When I first bought my ACMER S1, I right away saw an opportunity to fixture for repeatability. I was only concentrating on three items, all of which can be fixtured. Just drop the blank in and run the program. However I made that even more complicated than it needed to be, with sub-fixtures that can locate final fixtures, all in order to maintain a flexible production that still takes time to change over, or have to think what you need to do (which can still lead to mistakes) as appose to doing it automatically .
This social media question drove me to do this blog, and my first entry, "To Fixture or Not To Fixture, That Is The Question".
Continual improvement is the name of the game, finding ways to cut time and material. I am on my third iteration. Perhaps this is not the direction you would have taken. That is okay. There are many roads that can make your journey enjoyable. This road happens to be mine.
I am not going to give you the history and reason for my earlier attempts. That is a waste of our time. And, we can share what we are doing now that works, so that others do not have to go through the trials and tribulations of experimentation just to end up right here, letting them know of a better way (perhaps). Users need to take what we as creators have developed, modify for any errors or things that can go wrong, make it there own, and improve the process even further. That is my goal anyway. To continually improve.
With that, here is how I fixture and boundary burn for my ACMER S1 6W:
Step 1: After the iterations of different size mounting boards, I ended up custom cutting one to the outside dimensions of the ACMER Mini Enclosure for the S1. This way I can just plop it on and go, knowing I have cleared both sides of the gantry motion.
Step 2: I placed the S1 on my mounting board, lowered the enclosure over the S1 and onto the mounting board, and located the S1 so that the right side of the gantry just cleared the enclosure, leaving the maximum room on the left side for the festooned wire loom to freely pass.
The fore / aft location of the S1 was decided by clearance of the power connection with the Mini Enclosure, and also the left side festooned wire loom. I had changed the communication cable to one of higher quality, because I was connecting the S1 and my P3 to the same laptop through a powered USB hub. (I had experienced communication outages, but now I am maintaining communication.) This cable change required me to notch the front of the Mini Enclosure to allow for the cable to come out, which by default then served as my fresh air inlet for when I use the enclosure to exhaust the fumes.
Once I had the S1 located to clear the Mini Enclosure, I used bass wood strips for locators at all parameter corners of the S1 and glued them down (basically creating a 4-way locator). This now give me the repeatability for location when I remove the S1 from this base (to use on another base), and come back to this base again and re-install.
Step 3: Though I could have stopped here and burned in my boundaries on the base board, I chose instead to keep going and to create a waste board, knowing that I produce a lot of different items with the S1, and would like to make different waste boards with boundaries for those other items.
I had some 1/8" MDF scrap, so I trimmed it up to fit through the side of the S1. When locating, I took care to give myself enough room for a pre-cut 1/8" MDF board. Realizing that (meaning I may have different size cut scrap or bought MDF) I knew I had to only use locators on two sides, giving allowance for any variance to go "outside" my work area on the other two sides. I chose the left and bottom edges of the MDF to locate, basically because I think of everything coming off X and Y = 0. I glued in bass wood locators on those two sides. Whenever I change a waste board, all I have to do is bump it up against those locators and I am now repeatable in placement of my items to be burned.
Step 4: Now that the waste board can be repeatedly located on the base board which the S1 is 4-way located to, I am able to create some boundary burns on the waste board for placement of my items. The items I burn the most are 4" round and square coasters, and two different size leather keychains. What you see in the photo below is the boundaries of those items. What I have added as well are the diagonal lines for visual assistance in placement of the square coasters. If you use slate coasters you will find that the sides are not perfectly squared up (not parallel or perpendicular). So, a decision needs to be made as to what orientation do I need for a best fit for all sides. That decision is with an added piece of information, orientating the corners. With a square slate coaster put down and inside the square boundary, I can tweak the rotation or nudge the coaster in a direction that would point all 4-corners in the right direction.
Note that you will see a dark burned line at the bottom. That is why you use waste boards. I failed to reset my elevation of the laser with the next slate coaster that was thicker than the others I ran. The laser shield pushed the coaster off location and started engraving on the waste board.
I run almost all of my items on my ACMER S1 this way, using pre-burned guides to locate my material substrates. This is much faster than taking measurements or counting squares on a grid, and even quicker than some other fixture ideas out there that require verification and validation to make a quality item. I am not suggesting this is perfect. It works for me, and it might for you. There is always a better way to build in quality.
Working from the "work area center" has its benefits. In LightBurn there is a command "Move to Page Center" that is super useful. You can layout your boundaries for products in the Tools tabs (T1 and / or T2), center and lock them, then create burn layers of designs and center them in your boundaries using the same centering method. Of course there are designs that may not look appropriate centered because of "white space", and you may want to nudge the image a little for aesthetics. End of the day the decisions are always yours with respect to you and your customer.
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