My big takeaway from this laser cutting project was that using the Epilogue wasn’t particularly difficult. The hard part was getting the cut to look good. Getting a good amount of contrast was particularly difficult.

The first thing we did was engrave several ¼ inch squares using different speed and power levels. This was to give us a good idea of different engraving depths and colors. All the different preset raster settings for wood had the same power level, so we didn’t experiment with different power levels at first. In later experimentation, we would later vary power levels as well. We kept frequency the same for all engraving.

This process gave us a general idea of the effects of various power and speed levels, but it was not perfect. We left 1/8 inch of uncut wood between the squares. This arrangement ended up being somewhat problematic because although we were able to compare the relative darkness of the different power/speed settings, we did not get a good idea of how one set of settings would show up against another set.

We also had difficulties with the vector file. When we went to cut the war owl after engraving it, the Epilogue made cuts inside the owl not just around it. It had cut out part of the feathers and some the letters inside the owl before we realized what was going on and stopped the cut. When we thickened the stroke to get a better view, we were able to see that there was an outline inside the owl as well as around it. This outline marked the limits of the blue fill (see image below). Through a lot of trial and error and some googling, we were able to generate an outline of the owl so we were able to turn off the stroke surrounding the blue fill.

One of our best discoveries was the color mapping feature of the Epilogue. This setting allowed us to engrave while using up to six different power/speed settings in one pass. By using color mapping, we were able to be much more efficient in our cutting. The only downside of using color mapping was that you are unable to do a combined vector and raster cut. I am not sure if you can use color mapping to set different speed, power, and frequency settings for multiple different vector cuts in a vector only print.

We submitted two different owls for our final product, one the inverse of the other. See below for the settings. The color refers to the color in the Adobe file above.

Owl 1:

• Green:
  • Speed: 60
  • Power: 40
  • Frequency: 50
• Blue:
  • Speed: 60
  • Power: 80
  • Frequency: 50

 

Owl 2:

• Green:
  • Speed: 60
  • Power: 80
  • Frequency: 50
• Blue:
  • Speed: 60
  • Power: 40
  • Frequency: 50

We are unsure why Owl 2 has a dark patch on the right wing. We hypothesize that it may be due to warping in the wood leading to a change in focus length.