The unique software for laser and rotary engraving machines With Gravostyle™, switching engraving technologies and applications is easy. You work from the same software platform whether you are engraving with a laser or mechanical machine.
Below are some hints and tips for building your Gearbest or Banggood Eleks Laser Engraver. The Instructable above has the details, but I found these items as I went thru the steps in their tutorial.
Read through these and then jump to their tutorial.
Do not over tighten acrylic bolts to keep from cracking. (Hopefully, obvious!)
In step 2: Frame Assembly
Use the 1cm bolts with nuts on the frame. Not the 1.2cm or 1.5cm bolts.
In step 3: X-Carriage
Use a 3cm bolt, acrylic mount, plastic spacer, washer, bearing, washer, nut for each bearing assembly.
Orient the Stepper with gear with wiring connector towards the bearings. (picture 1)
Build the second x carriage as a mirror image of the first (picture 2)
In Step 4: Laser Assembly
Attach the Laser and the Stepper with gear to the acrylic pieces before assembling the long screws and bearings (picture 3 & 4)
The kit included two plastic guide covers to route the wires along the outside frame, but you have to install the wires BEFORE you assemble the steppers onto the frame. But it’s mainly aesthetics.
In Step 6: Belt Assembly
Install the center (laser head) belt first. Use the 1.2cm bolts and nuts. Do not cut the belt until you have it adjusted. Feed the entire belt thru the second acrylic fastener. Tighten fastener and slide the stepper assembly up and down the rail. It should travel smoothly and the belt should stay tense on the stepper gear. When ready to cut, leave at least a half inch or so sticking out of the acrylic fasteners so you can adjust tension.
Don’t cut too short! There is about 6 inches of spare belt available after all the installation.
From T2 Laser:For Grbl, Benbox and Eleks Maker Laser Engraving systems.
Image to G-Code Conversion. Supports JPEG or BMP import (up to 24-bit color). Greyscale (S-value) and 1-Bit (dithered or threshold) conversion. Resolution is user configurable. Horizontal or diagonal engraving (45 degree engraving makes lines less visible). Skip blank lines (improves engraving speed by eliminating unnecessary moves). Image resize (uses an optimized algorithm to improve quality). Allows basic image adjustment (brightness, contrast, flip and rotation). G-Code can be saved (registered users only).
Image to G-Code Conversion. Supports JPEG or BMP import (up to 24-bit color). Greyscale (S-value) and 1-Bit (dithered or threshold) conversion. Resolution is user configurable. Horizontal or diagonal engraving (45 degree engraving makes lines less visible). Skip blank lines (improves engraving speed by eliminating unnecessary moves). Image resize (uses an optimized algorithm to improve quality). Allows basic image adjustment (brightness, contrast, flip and rotation). G-Code can be saved (registered users only).
Laser Control. Supports Grbl 0.8, 0.9 (J-Tech branch is recommended for optimal performance) and 1.1. Load G-Code files (supports both raster and vector formats). User interface for jogging (8-way) with step distance and set / return home. Laser on, off and pulse (using user configured power and time). Override laser power settings and feed rate in G-Code file. Emergency stop (includes soft reset). Tested with files containing over 7,500,000 lines of G-Code (trial is limited to 10,000 lines). Can be launched directly (registered users only)
G-Code Viewer. Supports S-value laser code for true representation of result. Identify problems before sending to the laser.