Making laser jigs the easy way! (Setup time is less than 1 minute)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 15 ส.ค. 2021
- I’ve had many request for a jig video so this approach is a little different and I like it. In this video I cover how to easily create a jig to use in your laser to engrave large quantities of products. This process will work no matter what size of jig you need. From design to setting the tool layers to align your artwork perfectly. I use Absolute Coordinates in the example. Once the jig is cutout and inspected it’s time to turn the entire jig into a tool layer and add it to your art library.
- ภาพยนตร์และแอนิเมชัน
As someone new to laser engraving, I just couldn't wrap my head around jigs and how to duplicate the same results each and every time. This video made it so easy to understand, and also taught me some things that I didn't know about Lightburn yet. Thank you for taking the time to show both the software and hardware side of the process and making it easy to understand.
glad it helped!
Same here. I'm making jigs but needed to know how to make up what's on the screen to what's on the bed.
Thanks Robert for all your efforts! I am waiting for my Nova 35-80 to be delivered in September. I have watched all of your videos and have learned a lot. Please continue with your teaching. There are those of us that really need it!!
Thank you for your comments and input. I’m glad they help
Great video as always. I'm a noob to the laser world, waiting on delivery of my first laser, a Nova 35 100w. Trying to learn all I can prior to it's arrival. Your videos are very informative and have already helped us a lot. Thanks so much for your contributions to the laser community!
I appreciate the comments, congrats on the 35-100. I have the same laser and love it!
Thank you, this is exactly what I need. I was making a new jig each time because I couldn't figure out how to reuse the jig for the next item a month later. This solves that problem.
You're very welcome!
This ☝🏼 right here folks!! Robert you are a great teacher, and the class you did for me sure helped!!
Daniel Waters -
Hey Daniel, I enjoyed it as well. Thank you so much for the comments and hope we can do some more training down the road!
Thank you for sharing this. I've been fiddling around with gigs for a while now. This video made it a lot easier.
Once you figure out jigs production work gets allot easier. thanks for the comments
This is exactly what I wanted. Good ideas all round. You saved me some serious trial and error, I thank you.
thanks for the input!
Amazing. Very well taught and easy to understand. Great job!.
Glad it was helpful!
Your instructional videos are always so informative and easy to follow; built a jig for keychains and other things following this video.....THANKX!
Glad it was helpful!
We just ordered our Nova 51/100, and i have been curious about the templates. Just made it so much more understandable. Thank you.
congrats on the new laser you will love that model for sure!
Great video. Worked perfect to make a jig for my slate coasters. Thank you!
Glad it helped! Thank,you for the comment
You're doing good stuff with these videos Robert!
thank you Greg appreciate it!
Another brilliant video!
Thank you Todd, I appreciate the comments and you watching!
Amazing video incredibly detailed and helpful!
Glad it was helpful!
Super video. This has really upped my jig-game. Getting jiggy wit-it :)
Great to hear Robbie, I appreciate the comment. a good jig design can save a bunch of time.
Excellent tutorial!!
Glad you liked it!
Thanks man. That was great.
Glad you enjoyed it!
excelent as always. gracias amigo
thanks for the comments and watching!
Great video! I have been using LaserDraw with an old k40 for years, and just upgraded to a larger laser with Lightburn software. I had a hard stop to position all my templates to on the K40, and was wondering how I was going to do templates in Lightburn. You took all the guess work out of it! Thanks for making this great video!
thanks for the comment and watching!
Great video! appreciated.
Glad you enjoyed it!
Great video. Thanks for sharing
Thanks for watching!
Another great video, thank you! I would like to add to your list of requested videos and ask you to do a tutorial on making a multi layer lake map. I see them posted here and there and would like to give it a try. Thanks again.
thank you for your comments. I appreciate,
GREAT AGAIN!!!!
Thank you for your comment and watching my videos!
Nice. Thanks for sharing ☺
My pleasure 😊
Nice work.
Thanks for the visit
Thanks for the info it helped
Glad it helped
Love your videos. Super helpful and easy to follow. Where do you buy the clips you use to hold your jigs in place?
Etsy.com
awesome video nice info thank you.
Thanks for watching!
Thanks!
THIS is fantastic! Thank you so much for your generous contribution to my channel. I’m not sure you know how much I appreciate this!
Great video. By chance what clips are you using to hold the jig down? Different sizes available?
ordered these hold down clips off of Etsy, “Thunder honeycomb ho,d down clips”
Thank you for the great tutorial video on this subject as it will help greatly. How did you "center" the entire object in the frame?
There is a rectangle tool layer inside each rectangle. That allows you to drop in your design
Thanks for the information. Can I ask however why you don't use the feature in Lightburn called "Print and Cut" I've watched videos using that feature as well and it appears to be faster, less targets and your workpiece does not need to be perfectly aligned like your method does. Just curious but again your method works just as well.
Moving the jig to the laser head position is faster than changing the speed and moving the laser head to the target on the jig in my opinion. Thanks for watching!
This video is super helpful! One question..once you have your jig established and it is now a tool layer, how do you add text and make it center within one of your engrave-able areas without disrupting your jig?
great question I have one more rectangle that is slightly inset each opening. this is done before I creat the cutout for the finger hole. if you have your snap to objects your design will snap to the center of the inner rectangle of each opening. thanks for the comment
This has been very helpful. I would like you to do a video on how to insert text into the tool box.
not sure what you mean insert text into the tool box?
Ok, so in this video there was a box that you would later add the text or image to when you go to engrave the item, in this case, the 8000 ma charger.
I purchased my laser to mark the HAWG on the ULTICLIPs and to mark my Gozenta. I need to know how to make that step after I make the jig (screwed up my first attempt today). I would gladly send you some more money if I could get you to contact me for a little consultation Help.
Engravable area
contact me through my Facebook business page under the same name as my channel. this format doesn’t provide me a way to get ahold of you.
This is a great video, thanks. I'm just getting into lasers and I have a 50W CO2 and a 50W Fiber on the way. Can my 50W CO2 cut out a jig like this? What kind of wood and thickness would you recommend for my laser to make jigs?
This was 1/4” Baltic birch wood. With a 50 watt co2 you will need good air pressure 20-35psi to get a clean edge. External air is a great upgrade
Thanks
thank you very much for the donation to the channel. I really appreciate it!
good instructional video Robert - now I have to learn how to make 2x3 name tags using my atomstack A20 pro
thanks for the comment
Hey Robert, great video. How do you create the targets in lightburn? I can’t seem to create a perfect target. Thank you.
I just use two intersecting lines drawn by the pencil tool and a small circle
Nice one ...
Thanks ✌️
I don't have the Tool layer option. Do i need to enable something? Thanks for your help and great content.
Hi Nicole, are you running the latest version of LightBurn? this feature was added several versions back
Thank you for other amazing video! I have some question to you - orange holder of plywood. What is it? I find something like these peaces
thank you for the comment, got the orange hold down pins off of Etsy. search for thunder honeycomb hold down pins
Great video! Thank you. One question - once you get all that set up and your material dropped in, do you drive your laser to one of the targets and hit start? I'm confused on where you actually start the job from.
when using absolute coordinates your laser head doesn’t have to be in any particular spot. drop your graphic in and start. that is on a co2
@@computercreationz Thank you. I have a diode
Are you using the cut and print feature to line the targets up when you put the jig back in because how does it know where the targets are when you move the jig in and out off the bed?
No the print and cut feature is not used in any way in this process. Drive you laser head to the target on your desk top and manually move your jig target to the laser head. So you will always be moving you jig to the laser hear for this process to work.
Thanks!!!! this is a big help. Quick question, why use targets instead of creating an origin?
you can only generate on origin at a time, you need two opposite points to ensure your design is square with the gantry.
@@computercreationz awesome! Thanks for the info.
Perhaps more machinist mindset: I would be wanting some way to repeatably affix the jig to machine, pins into bed honeycomb for example. I would first install locating pins then cut jig. Targets maybe for confirmation.
that would be nice but the bed of the laser is used complex differently on each project. installing and removing fixed pins take allot of time. thank for watching!
Great video - thanks for sharing. One question - how are you making the bullseye?
Just using circle and individual lines grouped together
@@computercreationz thanks. I didn’t know if there was a special tool for this
You can use any markings that provide an exact point in order to set up your jig. Thanks for watching@@tomvetterani9653
Great tutorial on making a jig. Just completed my first one using all these steps - a huge time saver and it came out great. Do you have a video showing how to engrave the pieces then once you place them in your jig ? I made one to hold 15 keychains. When I ran the file the engrave the keychains with the logos I wanted on them the laser head runs the entire length on the bottom five and traverses back and forth rather than doing each logo individually - seems to take a ton of time going this was (almost 3 hrs to do all the keychains) I’m sure I’m missing a setting somewhere. I would think if it did the logos individually on each keychain it would go faster - any help on that step? Love the channel and learning new stuff !!
If it’s available open up,your layer and at the bottom you should see 3 radio buttons to tell lightbur if you want to engrave grouped items first. Try all three and see which one provides you the best time. Thanks for the comments and watching
Great video thanks but still a-bit lost on where do you put the template and align for engraving. Is there an. Easy way to get a staring point . Many thaks. Nb i am new to laser engraving
What are you using to hold down your material? I haven't seen those before.
Bought them on Etsy! Look for Thunder honeycomb hold down pins
Thanks Robert. Great videos that have been very helpful to a newbie. I made a jig but having trouble using it. I'm in absolute coordinates and can line up the targets. But when I go to engrave the item in the jig it does not line up as it appears on lightburn. It is consistently an inch to the side. Any guesses what I am doing wrong? I rewatched this video multiple times and still don't have a solution. Thanks. Cliff
something has changed in your setup. drive around with the laser located tool to pin point what it is. you can move your jig layout in lightburn after you’ve set it up in the laser. that’s where most people have an issue
@@computercreationz Hi Robert. Here is some follow up in case others are having a similar problem.
In setting up Xtool with Light burn I used the file provided by XTool rather than have lightburn dicover my laser.
Next in settings I turned off the offset feature and made my workspace slightly smaller on the Y axis. This prevented the arm from banging into the cables when I tried to go home. I also repositioned the limit switch to coincide with the smaller workspace.
Finally, I discovered I always had to return to home before running the file. I could not start it from a target position. I don't know if this is true for all lasers but it was a needed step for the XTool D1 Pro.
Robert hi when you are creating the Jig are you using Absolute Coordinates, thank you for all the help 🥰
Yes
Hi i really love your videos very educative. I learn alot. I did my target but when i press location then the target my laser doesn't show the red light for me to be able to adjust how do i fix that? I'm using a sculpfun s9
thank you for your comments, I don’t know much about the brand you have, so I’m not much help sorry.
Very informative! Question: When you are lining up your laser with your targets, are you focused to the surface of the plywood template? I ask because I know your battery packs stand proud of the plywood template so I assume you refocus to the surface of the battery pack? What, if any, effect, does that have on your alignment? Thanks for the video and in advance for your response.
I focus for aligning the targets they re focus to the product in the jig
Robert what are you using for tiedowns. BTW I made my first batch of name tags. Took a while to figure it all out
Hey Burt, thanks for the comment. once you get it figured out it goes allot faster.
Do you have a video on making a target? Can you add a target to a jig you’ve already cut??
draw a .5” circle then a .05” circle center the small circle in the larger circle. add a horizontal and vertical line. save in you LightBurn art library
Robert what are you using for tiedowns do you mind if I ask you a question. Im making a template with 9 squares 3.75'X5" My 1/4' plywood is 14x14" I have a msg in these squares. Can I make the first square like you did with the printing on it, if so will I be able to duplicate this printing on the other 8 squares at the same time or will I have to do each square that separately
I’ve found some honeycomb pins on Etsy I really like they have a round head and come in different colors and thicknesses. Yes get the first square exactly how you want it and use the rectangular array tool in lightburn. The icon looks like a bunch of square dots. Hope this helps
Great video thanks but still a-bit lost on where do you put the template and align for engraving. Is there an Easy way to get a starting point so it is all aligned
using the targets for alignment is the entire key for this!
What are the orange things you using to hold down the wood and where did you get them?
etsey.com search for thunder honeycomb hold down pins
I just made the jig body.. however before i cut it out etc.. do I use absolute coordinates on the first stage? Or user origin to get the body cut out?
you can do either, there is a couple more jig videos on my channel that will show you different approaches. pick on either user origin or absolute coordinates but don’t mix them. I prefer absolute coordinates these days. thanks for watching
Looking for the link to your art library video that you mentioned in this video.
th-cam.com/video/Rv7GAKFilUs/w-d-xo.html
hi, how to turn on the laser pointer when you need to point it to the target? thank for this video, very helpful.
most co2 lasers the red dot is on when the laser is turned on. if you have a diode I’m not much help my apologies
Activate it in device settings in lightburn:
✅ Enable laser fire button
Then:
Go to the “move” tab to switch it on and off and make sure your power setting next to it is 1% or else you mark materials. You can also activate to use this for framing too, underneath the first setting I mentioned.
Hi --- I am brand new to lasers --- so here are a few questions about the process in your video ---- you already had the jig cut out in this video so my questions are -------- once I cut the jig / save as a tool / pull back in and begin wanting to engrave.... what are my next steps --- I cant seem to find any videos on ---- loading material to engrave in the jig and making sure it gonna do like i want -----help if you can --- thanks
goto 15:13 of this video and it shows you how to do it! thanks for watching!
Sir were did you get the hold down for the bigger crumb trays?
Etsy and search for honeycomb pin holddowns
I am importing DXF files from CAD program that have the shapes of my products for engraving. When trying to weld in the finger hole for pulling out the items it does not allow the weld. The weld feature works in Lightburn, just not with an imported DXF. I am new to Lightburn, and might be missing something simple.
You may have to covert them to shapes. I believe it’s under the edit menu
Question Robert... Could that laser setup be used for slate coasters?
Yes perfect for slate coasters!
How do you get your laser to show a red dot to be able to line up on the crosshairs?
that’s called a beam combiner and is installed in the back of your laser.
Would a template like this work with an xtool d1 with the honeycomb bed? If so, how would you get the laser head to move to the targets.
I’m not sure I’m not familiar with a diode laser setup. Sorry!
Do you know where I could find those little plastic piece that holds the jigs down to the mesh bottom of the laser machines. Or maybe just the name of it so that I could search it up. Thanks in advance.
Etsy.com search honeycomb pins
A video how to align a cuttingboad(with handle) for engraving would be nice :) Its a pain in the a... :)
thank you for the suggestion!
I just bought my first laser engraver and I pretty much understand how to make a template but I am lost on how you got the target symbol.
what do you mean got? I drew them in lightburn then grouped them and moved them to opposite parts of the jig designs
Im new to light burn. How would you measure a 22 oz Skinny Polar Tumbler to make a jig. I’m sure it’s easy but I’m lacking confidence since I and like so new.
doing tumblers without a rotary is tricky and I don’t recommend until you have a little more time with your laser and lightburn.
@@computercreationz I appreciate the honest and quick response.
What machine would you recommend for business cards engraving? (large scale engraving hundreds a week)
What kind of business cards, if you’re talking aluminum with powder coating the fiber laser is way faster. I wouldn’t do that on a co2
@@computercreationz Yeah exactly aluminum anodized.. do you know how much faster a fiber laser is vs co2? Co2 is currently taking me 9 minutes per side :/
@@rookieallen8439 I can do one in about 40 seconds on my 60 watt fiber as soon as this next update to lightburn comes you will be to use a turret and crank them out pretty quick. Get ahold of me via computer Creationz Facebook business page and we can talk further
If my engraved item (slate) is higher than the wooden template how do I keep it within my focal depth? if I align my target on my 3mm ply and the slate is 10mm it either goes out of alignment or doesn't engrave correctly.. Any tips please
Your jig material needs to be thicker!
Where did you get your orange hold downs?
Etsy.com
hey Robert. I saw your channel on my list, and jumped straight to it...as always. I have struggled with jigs, and I have wasted so much material trying to get things right and line them up, so this, is going to be a game changer hopefully for me, thanks you so much. It sounds simple enough ( famous last words haha ). to mkgete t, is it just a circle and then a vertical and horizontal line to create the crosshair?
I cant seem to get my snap tool working, but its clearly just me not doing something right, but I will keep trying
As always Robert, thank you very much, and I look forward to your next new masterclass
you should think about putting things like this onto skill share you know, as a series from you will likely draw a lot of interest and bring in some well deserved cash
all the best to you and your family
Terry
I always enjoy hearing from you Terry!
you aligned your jig but arent you battery packs thicker than your jig - meaning after you align your jig you have to drop the bed?? this could allow error in aligning as the bed moves......isnt a solution to this to have your alignment marks on another peice at the same height as your battery packs?
your bed going up and down doesn’t change you x, y alignment. I’ve never experienced an alignment problem doing it that way. the jig is pinned down so it can’t move. thanks for watching!
My question is focal height? Im assuming i need to make my jig from the height that i will be at when im engraving what is in my jig?
No not really it can be any height as long as it doesn’t interfere with your laser head. You will focus on the material your engraving.
@@computercreationz I made a jig yesterday then lowered the bed down to fit in my item, did a test fire after location on the PC where my engravable area was and missed the item by about a hair. My item is 20mm tall and jig is sitting flat on bed like yours... would you suggest making the jig from that height or maybe raising the jig up around the items?
Is there a location button on RDWorks?
I’ve never used rd works so I’m not sure!
what if the material is bigger than the machine?
I don’t believe you can make a jig bigger that the work area of you laser because you cannon move the jig for any reason during the engraving process
I saw the Festools. are you on FOG?
I am but haven’t been active in quite a while. love my festools!
@@computercreationz ok, I too am pretty heavy Festool user. just placed an order for my first laser. I see you are running atleast 2 lasers and based on the fact you are making jigs to burn 18 parts at a time Im assuming this is not just a hobby for you and you are doing this as a job. I subbed either way, is there a "good" laser forum group you can recommend?
Where is the target tool?
if your tali g about the targets I add in this video I drew them in lightburn
A suggestion to help some of your older viewers. Go into Windows settings and make your cursor arrow larger and a bright color like yellow. When you say I’m going to go over here and use the weld tool, I can’t see where your going or which icon you used. I’ve got to run it back constantly to figure it out. The info is absolutely great, I just have a hard time following your cursor.
Thank you for the suggestion. I adopted the larger bright yellow cursor shortly after this video. I’d you watch some of my more recent videos it’s much easier to follow.
As a total noob i actually didnt understand half of what you did, when you say oh "i'll center it" but not how etc. In lightburn i have i don't even have tool mode, just line, fill and offset fill.
there is no tool mode there are tool layers they are at the far right of all you layer colors named t1 and t2
what is software used to create all these?
Lightburn
Your design and the actual template does not match !! The design has all the finger holes to the left, and the template has it to the left, center down and right............ Attention to detail......?
Thanks!
Thank you very Much! I really appreciate your contribution.
Thanks
Terry, thank you so much for the tip, I really appreciate it. hope your doing well man. good to hear from you.
Thanks!
Thank you so much for the tip, I really appreciate it. It will go towards some better audio equipment for the channel. I appreciate you watching!
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Mike, thank you so much for the tip, I really appreciate it!
Thanks!
Max, thank you for the tip, I really appreciate it,
Thanks!
Thank you Wendy, I really appreciate the tip. It will go to good use! Thanks for watching
Thanks!
Calvin, thank you for the “thanks” this really helps me out and I appreciate it!
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Thank you very much for the “Thanks” I really appreciate it. I know this is not your first one! I’m very great full
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I really appreciate the contribution! Thank you
Thanks!
thank you so much for the Tip, I really appreciate it, it will go to get use improving my audio setup for my videos. I appreciate you watching!