Job Time Optimization
The faster your laser finishes one job, the sooner you can start another. These tools will help you speed up your project runtimes, without any loss in quality of the finished product, so you can spend less time waiting and more time making things.
Preview Window Time Estimates¶
The Preview window simulates movements and lasering operations before sending a project to the machine. You can use it to see the order in which cuts will be completed, and check that your laser will do what you expect, but that's not all.
One of the most useful features in the Preview window is the ability to calculate and show the Total estimated time it will take your laser to complete your project. As you make changes to optimize your project's runtime, check back in the Preview window to see which settings result in the fastest times.
Video: Getting Accurate Time Estimates
The Additional Settings tab of Device Settings controls the settings used in Preview for simulating a preview and estimating time. Changing these settings will not change anything about how the job actually runs, but can make time estimates more accurate.
Line Interval¶
Line Interval is the distance between scan lines when raster engraving, making it one of the key settings determining the quality of engravings on Image and Fill Layers. It is mathematically tied to the Lines per Inch value.
Lower Line Interval values lead to a greater density of lines. The ideal Line Interval will produce lines that just touch, without overlapping.
Increasing Line Interval to the maximum amount that doesn't leave gaps between lines will lead to reduced runtimes for your projects, with no loss in quality, but you may also need to increase Power to achieve dark engravings.
Use the Interval Test or Material Test to find the optimal Line Interval for your laser and material.
Fill Mode Ordering¶
The Fill Mode order-by options control which shapes are engraved at the same time by the laser. If you run your laser fast, or your laser accelerates slowly, it is often most efficient to scan things all at once, so the laser spends most of its time moving at the speed you've chosen, and less time changing direction.
If you are engraving slowly, your laser accelerates fast, or the design contains a lot of blank space, it can be more efficient to fill clusters of close shapes, or to fill the shapes one by one.
Offset Fill¶
Offset Fill Mode is a special type of Fill operaton that tells your laser to etch concentric lines that follow the contour of the shape.
Offset Fill is intended for designs with a lot of empty space within graphics, to cut down on the amount of travel time necessary to fill large, hollow shapes. If that description fits your design, Offset Fill will most likely be much faster than Fill Mode. If that doesn't apply to your graphics, it's usually best to use Fill instead of Offset Fill.
Flood Fill¶
Flood Fill calculates an engraving path that attempts to reduce or eliminate travel moves across blank space. It's useful for engraving designs with lots of empty space within graphics, where traveling across the empty portions would otherwise consume a great deal of time.
Flood Fill is an especially useful option for machines that accelerate quickly, and for Galvo lasers in particular.
Fast Whitespace Scan¶
Note
This setting is only available for GCode-based lasers.
This setting boosts your laser's travel speed through blank areas of an image engraving, if the speed you set here is faster than your laser's engraving speed.
This can save a lot of time if you're engraving an image slowly to get a good burn, particularly if there are large blank areas in the image.
Optimization Settings¶
LightBurn's Cut Planner controls the order in which your laser cuts or engraves graphics in your project. The Cut Optimization Settings window is where you adjust the variables by which the Cut Planner decides on cut order and pathing.
Understanding these settings will help you optimize for both quality and speed. One of the most powerful options is the Remove Overlapping Lines setting, which tells your laser to cut lines that are shared by two graphics just once.
Material Test¶
LightBurn has a built-in test pattern generator to help you find the best settings for your laser and any material you're working with.
To open the Material Test Generator, go to the Laser Tools Menu and select Material Test.
It will take you a little extra time up front, but identifying the ideal combinations of Speed, Power, and other settings to produce high quality engravings as quickly as possible will help you maximize efficiency down the line.
Material Library¶
LightBurn's Material Library provides a place to store, organize, and quickly re-apply preset Cut Settings for different operations and materials.
Overscanning¶
When your laser engraves graphics set to Fill or Image Mode, the line-by-line, back-and-forth movement across the graphics is sometimes called scanning.
Overscanning refers to additional moves added to the beginning and end of each line to give the laser space to speed up before firing, and slow down afterward, which in turn prevents the edges of engraved areas from burning darker than the centers.
To optimize job time it's important to understand the relationship between job Speed and Overscanning amount. Because high Speed settings require more distance and time for acceleration and deceleration, increasing Speed does not always lead to a much faster overall job time — in some cases, increasing past a certain point can actually lead to an increase in job time, rather than a reduction.
For more help using LightBurn, please visit our forum to talk with LightBurn staff and users, or email support.