Here in Australia, material for laser cutting and engraving is expensive so we try to minimize our waste as much as possible. So we are going to go through 2 methods on how you can reduce your wastage by aligning the shapes in LightBurn. It’s easy to do and you will really like how much material you are going to save.
You can see the difference between a lot of waste and very minimal waste in the image below.
Method 1
To demonstrate the first method I am going to make some coasters, they are always popular. So come up to shapes and draw a square on the workspace.
I want to round the corners to give the shape the typical coaster look, and I just happen to like the rounded corners.
To change the corner radius by going over to the Shape Properties tab.
If you don’t see the Shape Properties tab simply come up to Window and you will see that option listed. Make sure it is checked.
I can make changes in the Shape Properties window until I get the curved corner that I like.
Now I want to make 9 coasters so I come over to the grid array tool in the menu bar, and I will change the numbers in the X and Y fields to 3.
Now we want to reduce the space using the same pop up. So in the X Spacing and Y Spacing fields change them both to zero and click OK.
This is what it should look like. You will notice that the coasters have overlapped.
At this point, if you were to cut this, the laser would would cut over any overlapping lines twice.
To stop this from happening, click the Optimization Settings option.
And then select the ‘Remove overlapping lines’ option and click OK.
Method 2
This method is for other types of shapes (like hexagons for example), that may not work as well with the Grid Array tool.
Watch the video above to see this in action but here are the basic settings that need to be in place to make this work.
SETTING 1: Click the General Settings option from the top menu.
And select the Snap to Objects option.
SETTING 2: Click the Optimization Settings Option.
And select the Remove Overlapping Lines option.
Once those two options are selected you can move shapes together so that they SNAP together and overlap perfectly.
Again watch the video above as it will make more sense that me writing out the steps.
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