Full Version: Optimizing Engraving

From: Gary White (GARYWHITE) [#1]
 21 Aug 2006
To: ALL

Hello All-

I'm trying to optimize engraving times for a 600 piece corporate order where I work. The logo is only about 2x3 or so but it is currently taking around 20 minutes a piece to engrave. With 600 pieces it's going ot take quite a while to finish them. We are using Signature Engraver 8080Plus's. The logo was created using Scan.Trace.Fill and was then dropped in Logomake to create the file. Hopefully this is enough info to get you started, any advice you could give would be much appreciated.

Gary

gwhite [at] nospam redenvelope. com

EDITED: 21 Aug 2006 by DGL

From: Stunt Engraver (DGL) [#2]
 21 Aug 2006
To: Gary White (GARYWHITE) [#1] 21 Aug 2006

Gary,

Are you rotary/burnishing/diamond drag engraving?

It could be that a lot of the fill lines can be eliminated.

From: Gary White (GARYWHITE) [#3]
 21 Aug 2006
To: ALL

To be honest with you, I'm not 100% sure. I'm the system adminstrator here and have just started tinkering. I am leaning towards diamond drag, because nothing is spinning so I'm thinking rotary is out. Can you further explain burnishing, I looked up burnishing but the definitions didn't make a whole lot of sense to me... I'm pretty green incase I haven't already made that obvious.

From: Stunt Engraver (DGL) [#4]
 21 Aug 2006
To: Gary White (GARYWHITE) [#3] 21 Aug 2006

Gary,

We all come in a variety of colors, but I can assure you, we were all green at one time. :-) 

No crime there.

In most cases (not all) burnishing is used to cut a wider swath than a standard diamond-drag bit. Burnishing tools come in a variety of widths, with either carbide or diamond tips.

Diamond tips can be used for all burnishing applications where a carbide tool can be used, plus they can engrave glass and coated aluminum sheet stock, which can't be done with carbide-tipped tools.

From your description, it sounds like you're diamond-dragging the substrate.

If you have the ability to change the fill, try leaving less overlap (widen the space between lines). The more fill lines, the smoother the look, but as you're finding, the engraving time can be unbearbale, or at least unprofitable.

You can still get a very respectable fill effect, without the lines touching each other. Too much space between fill lines doesn't look good. You'll find the right balance of engraving speed and appearance.

EDITED: 21 Aug 2006 by DGL

From: JHayes55 [#5]
 21 Aug 2006
To: Gary White (GARYWHITE) [#3] 21 Aug 2006

Gary - 20 minutes for a 2x3 inch logo is a very slow machine or a lot of lines or both. I do not mean that to sound bad - just a fact. You going to be working several hours (about 200 if my math is correct). That is five 40 hour weeks just for the engraving not to mention load, unload, pack etc. Hope you customer is not in as big a hurry as most seem to be.

Two suggestions - 1) Post the logo as you have saved it for engraving and let some of experts here take a look and offer suggestions on how to make it better for you (Several people here have forgot more than most of us will ever know about this) 2) Strongly consider outsourceing the project to another engraver who is set up to handle this. My guess is you could save money in the long run. Since your in CA there are tons of good engravers out your way.

Hope my post does not come across the wrong way - it is only meant offer a couple good choices - I suggest trying the first one then go to plan B is you need to.

Good luck

From: Stunt Engraver (DGL) [#6]
 21 Aug 2006
To: JHayes55 [#5] 21 Aug 2006

quote:
Since your in CA there are tons of good engravers out your way.


Joe,

My reading comprehension must have disappeared. I didn't see where Gary mentioned he was in California.

From: Gary White (GARYWHITE) [#7]
 21 Aug 2006
To: ALL

I have the logo as a bmp and a plt, which would be more helpful?

From: Gary White (GARYWHITE) [#8]
 21 Aug 2006
To: ALL

I'm actually in Ohio, that is our corporate location (I'm assuming you looked up Red Envelope). I have about a dozen machines at my disposal, so we can get the logos done on time. I'm just looking to see if there is anything I can do to help with times. It won't even affect this specific project as we've already started it and can't have half of the pieces look different. But in the future it could save our personalization department tons of time if I know how to make the file so that it can be engraved in 10 or 15 minutes instead 20. We at least weekly get orders of 100+ items, so even a 10% increase in speed is thousands of dollars in labor saved.

From: JHayes55 [#9]
 21 Aug 2006
To: Gary White (GARYWHITE) [#7] 21 Aug 2006

PLT - for most engravers this would be better.

From: JHayes55 [#10]
 21 Aug 2006
To: Gary White (GARYWHITE) [#8] 21 Aug 2006

Gary -I saw that most of the locations were listed as CA - and maybe only one in OH so I took a shot - also something about time zone gave me guess - I bet someone (notice I did not say me) is sharp enough to give you a hand on this one. My commission is will only be small part of the time/dollars saved (lets say about 50 or 60%) ;-) 

From: JHayes55 [#11]
 21 Aug 2006
To: Stunt Engraver (DGL) [#6] 21 Aug 2006

My friend you must learn to read between the lines!!! :P  Really just a little CSI work going on here.

From: Gary White (GARYWHITE) [#12]
 21 Aug 2006
To: JHayes55 [#10] 21 Aug 2006

Well the CFO would kill me if I paid you in money saved, so I guess I'll have to pay you in time. Do you want your payment in minutes or hours? ;-) 

The PLT is attached

From: James (TILER02) [#13]
 21 Aug 2006
To: Gary White (GARYWHITE) 21 Aug 2006

I do not rotary engrave, So I could be all wrong, But what I see in that file are way to many points. The points should be reduced quite a bit. That would give a much better engraving much faster.

From: Gary White (GARYWHITE) [#14]
 21 Aug 2006
To: ALL

Excuse my ignorance, but can you explain points?

From: UncleSteve [#15]
 21 Aug 2006
To: James (TILER02) [#13] 21 Aug 2006

And most likely won't even change the look if they are selectively removed... :-) 

From: James (TILER02) [#16]
 21 Aug 2006
To: Gary White (GARYWHITE) [#14] 21 Aug 2006

A point is every place the machine makes a turn. Every turn increases the time. The curves in this logo are very jagged, They need to be smooth curves. Get the file from brandsoftheworld.com and use that one instead.

EDITED: 21 Aug 2006 by TILER02

From: Gary White (GARYWHITE) [#17]
 21 Aug 2006
To: ALL

Alright, I pulled that file and I'm gonna do a test engrave. I also am going to try one I removed several points on. There were literally hundreds on the "C" on Coldwell roughly how many points would I want for normal quality?

From: JHayes55 [#18]
 21 Aug 2006
To: Gary White (GARYWHITE) [#12] 22 Aug 2006

Gary - I could use more time - send it by the hours please. B-) 
Since it 10:00 pm my time I leaving the shop to go home - I will try to look the PLT file over in the morning. 4:30 am comes early in my neck of the woods and I think better early - My best guess is you have way too much fill - over kill. I can almost bet someone will beat me to it by morning.
Off to get beauty sleep. (no comments from the peanut gallery that knows me!)

From: Harvey only (HARVEY-ONLY) [#19]
 21 Aug 2006
To: Gary White (GARYWHITE) [#12] 22 Aug 2006

I just pulled the logo apart. The fill is .005" apart and is a horizontal based fill.

It would need to be remade and about .010 apart to give the same look to save 33% of the engraving right off the bat. Giving the fill an island base rather than zig zag will also reduce the time. Using 3 or 5 line Roman instead of the filled lettering will also reduce the time significantly.

My guess is that it can be redone to cut the time down to about 25%, maybe even less, and not have any difference in looks. It may take an hour or so to make those changes, but think of how many hours that will save in the engraving stage.

From: gingem [#20]
 22 Aug 2006
To: JHayes55 [#5] 22 Aug 2006

Hi Gary
Is that really the logo or just a jpeg of it? If that is your plot file it looks terrible. I have an 8080 plus myself but I don't use the trace, scan, fill software. I use Corel and Logomake, if that is really your plot file then what you need to do before anything else is to clean up the logo. The outline itself is not a straight line which will increase your engraving time tremendously. Second, before you do the fill portion, make the logo the exact size you want to engrave and then fill it. If you make it larger to start and then fill it the fill lines will be closer together and take longer. Unless I miss my guess this logo was just scanned in form a jpeg and the filled and plotted?? If you want to do a job like that it might be okay for one piece but not for a lot. Take the time and correct the logo.

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