Thunder Laser USA Support

Laser
#1

Brian with Thunder Laser USA Support and Innovation Labs here…

I just wanted to let you know, we are constantly evolving and expanding our support documentation and resources.

You can find the support portal here:
https://support.thunderlaserusa.com/support/home

We will try to monitor these threads but if you have an issue that requires Thunder support, feel free to email [email protected] and a ticket will be generated which the entire Thunder team can collaborate on and respond to.

Since you may have multiple Thunder machines, Please always include the model, wattage, and serial number of the unit with your submission. Some lasers may be outfitted a bit differently so we need to verify the machine by SN ( you can snap a pic of the machine label near the main power connections on the back of the machine). Thanks and let us know if we can help.

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#2

Thanks for joining us.

We have a tremendously creative variety of users. we use these machines in so many ways. And break them in new ways too. Your assistance will be valuable.

Cheers :v:

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#3

A couple of questions

  1. It there a reference chart for starting speeds and power depending upon material?
  2. Do you have an area with videos, not product but how too, tips and tricks, and so on?
#4

Thunder has the charts you ask about in their web site. I don’t have links handy but every time I need I google and find them. Your search will be something like: Thunder laser material settings.

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#5

We need to redo the suggested power and speed settings with the new laser tubes. If I can get to the space this week, I will try to do this for a variety of materials.

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#6

The Lighburn tutorials on YouTube have fantastic information. Laser tutorial #3 provides deep information on lasering images and fills. He explains very well what the obscure settings (internal, overscan, dithering…) mean. Excellent reference resource.

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#7

As for Thunder Laser, they have them here:
https://m.thunderlaser.com/videos.html

#8

Brian at @ThunderSupport also has useful videos on yt.

https://www.youtube.com/c/ThunderLaserUSA

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#9

This is what we have on materials:
https://support.thunderlaserusa.com/support/solutions/65000096168

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#10

All of our support documentation can be found at support.thunderlaserusa.com.

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#11

Thank you. That site didn’t exist when i was more involved in maintaining our lasers.

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#12

Thank you - @talkers @mdredmond @ThunderSupport
You guys are awesome :clap:

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#13

I have a couple more questions as I travel down the rabbit hole…

  1. It seems our version of lightburn doesn’t have all the fonts I have on my laptop… is there a way to login to the thunder with my laptop…and send the job to the laser? Like with the DMS user WiFi? It’s annoying that all the work I did has to be redone with a different font…
  2. The USB ports in the lasers, are they disabled?
#14

Fonts are computer-specific, so you may just need to ask the powers that be to install the fonts you need.

If you design your stuff in Inkscape or Illustrator, you can save your text objects as paths so they stay looking the way you want them to even if the computer doesn’t have that font. And you can use your designs easily across platforms like laser, woodshop CNC, vinyl cutter, etc.

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#15

I own lightburn software. I should be able to design it save it to a flash drive, bring it in load it and burn… I had 3 different designs that I had to change the font while at maker space… it’s a PITA!
If it’s a security ( network issue) then why not put the lasers on there own VPN within the makerspace member WiFi network or put them on a separate WiFi network to protect it. Or install all the fonts from Microsoft Office on the PCs?

#16

You can keep using your original fonts even if they aren’t on the Laser computers, it just requires you turn them into paths instead of leaving them as fonts. That way when you load the file it won’t go looking for a font, it just loads the vectors. I’ve run into the same issue since I use a fair number of custom fonts from dafont.com.

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#17

As I said before - what fonts are available on a computer depends on the computer. When you use a font you’re using the OS’s font, not the application’s font. There’s no “standard set” of Windows fonts. This headache happens with pretty much every application, not just Lightburn, although some applications have an “embed fonts” option when saving a file, but you have to look for it.

Perhaps Lightburn has an “embed fonts” option when saving a file. Or you can turn your text objects into paths instead of leaving them as fonts. I know that’s what Paul @hardsuit just said, but it’s what I said earlier in this thread as well.

Yes, it’s frustrating but the solution has been mentioned.

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#18

I assumed that it was already a tool path when checking my tool paths and estimate work time, that I didn’t need to turn the fonts into a tool path…

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#19

Easiest way to check, if you can still select/edit with the text tool, it’s not a path. It’s still referencing the font on your machine.

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