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I am slowly getting to grips with my laser but a few things are still confusing me

what is the colour for ?


And I don't really understand these do I need to have these filled out ?

J45on wrote:I am slowly getting to grips with my laser but a few things are still confusing me

what is the colour for ?
...

And I don't really understand these do I need to have these filled out ?
...

Color is the color you want a line (object, outline, etc) to be when it is the selected object in the window.

Circle Speed is where you can set different speed limits for circles of different sizes. This is only needed if you are getting circles (curves) that are not smooth enough or are not round and more oval-ish. I doubt you will ever need them, so leave them blank.

Engrave reverse offset is for aligning the scan lines when doing engraving. In x-swing engraving (our standard way), it engraves a scan line left-to-right and then it reverses and engraves the next scan line right-to-left. If your right-to-left scans are not aligned with the left-to-right scans, then you can use the engrave reverse offset to offset the start of the right-to-left (reverse) scan line engraving. This allows you to get all the scan lines aligned. This should only be necessary if your x axis is sloppy or springy. I have used a DSP on two different lasers and never needed to use this feature. If you get mis-aligned scan lines, the first thing I would look at is the tension in your timing belt. If too loose, it could cause the problem. Again, I doubt you would ever need this.

First question: When you select an item its border highlights. This is the color it turns. If you have a bunch of red items, you might want to change this to another color.

Second Question: While I have never used this setting, I think I understand it. This is sort of like backlash compensation for bilateral engraving. If you have a problem with backlash or belt stretch, bilateral engraving (engraves on the return stroke) can give you uneven edges. This allows you to add compensation for each speed.

I will add these questions answers to the wiki as they come up.

http://www.buildlog.net/wiki/doku.php?i ... hcad_usage

Edit: It looks like twehr beat me to the answer. I also have not found the need to use it. It probably comes into play on bigger heavier machines.

Thanks guys
I had another question about "DST Contour" but I have lost the picture
I will go and take another snapshot later

J45on wrote:Thanks guys
I had another question about "DST Contour" but I have lost the picture
I will go and take another snapshot later

It draws a contour line around the selected objects. Te contouring offset by an amount you enter. It draws both inside and outsidenthte line ofnyour selected object.

One use for this is to define a cut line around the selected objects. You might want this when making rubber stamps.

I tried to use it to create offsets for kerf (beam) compensation, but could not get it to do the job the way I wanted. It radiuses the corners. The contour function in corel draw works much better.

Btw, I learn things by trying them. Just draw some objects in PHCad, select one or more of them, and click a button, choose a menu item, or whatever. It is actually fun to discover what the software is capable of.