Tarkin Training - action needed!

Our new huge and powerful laser is on schedule to come fully online next week :tada: and we’re working on getting initial training schedule. If you are a current @makers who has already taken a laser class at Asmbly/ATXHS and would like to take a condensed training to be cleared to use Tarkin, please fill out the Google form below.

This form is only for current dues paying members who have previously received laser training at Asmbly/ATXHS. There will be full classes later on, but we’re starting with current laser users and offering this condensed training for free.

https://forms.gle/Du6xhgnyANnWDkzm6


Checkout this thread for more info on Tarkin -- https://yo.asmbly.org/t/sneak-peek-at-tarkin/3686

Tarkin will use – a new to Asmbly software – Lightburn to drive the laser. Many of you are already familiar with this software, it’s design software made specifically with laser cutting in mind. For those less familiar, here’s a little info on it:

Free trialhttps://lightburnsoftware.com/pages/trial-version-try-before-you-buy
Tutorial videoshttps://lightburnsoftware.com/pages/tutorials

Supported vector and raster formats:

Vector / mixed formats:

  • .ai - Adobe Illustrator
  • .svg - Scalable Vector Graphics
  • .dxf - AutoCAD Drawing Exchange Format
  • .pdf - Adobe Portable Document Format
  • .plt / .hpgl - Plotter / Hewlett-Packard Graphics Language

Image formats:

  • .png - Portable Network Graphics
  • .jpg / .jpeg - Joint Photographic Experts Group format
  • .bmp - Windows Bitmap
  • .gif - Graphics Interchange Format
  • .tif / .tiff - Tagged Image File Format
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Yay!! Super excited

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@nightinlight @TroyDaniel @Michael_Ford @okyeron @susu2290 @cookbob27 @jess @scrdtrb @alan – want to make sure you all see this as I’m sure you want to be on this list!

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Thanks for tagging me! I’d love to get started using it as soon as it’s ready. Also really looking forward to learning and using Lightburn.

I was assuming that “Tarkin” was a laser supplier, but no… is it named after the Star Wars weapon?

Haha, yeah it is just in reference to the Star Wars character Tarkin who was the captain of the Death Star and destroys stuff with its superlaser :awesome:

via GIPHY

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Hello @alan !
It is a custom build! It is over 220w nominal, which I believe is more firepower than any Makerspace had ever done, a huge 1.6m by 1m bed, and getting additional upgrade features over time.

I’m focusing also on high reliability and consistency- that settings should not need to be tweaked from visit to visit.

Its machine controller and panel are Ruida 6445G. The CAD/CAM and realtime PC interface is Lightburn, which I recommend you get your own copy of to do your CAD design, save as the LB project and then load onto our LB machine to run it

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One note that @TravisGood makes is that most formats like .svg, .dxf, etc do not actually have any scale specified for their units. It could be feel, mm, meters, furlongs, pixels, etc. You may have imported without issue in the past, but that’s more of a “luck” thing. It can end up being imported scaled in odd ways.

.PDF will be the recommended exchange format.

Overall, though, I would just recommend getting your own copy of Lightburn. It is CAD, CAM, and realtime machine operation together. IMHO much better than Corel or Illustrator, as well as being cheap. There is a free trial version for a month.

You will not be operating the laser machine directly from your laptop, but it is a great design tool as well as machine support. If you already did your design in LB, then it’s seamless to just load a LB at the machine, there is no export/import.

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I filled out the form, but I haven’t heard anything else yet - just wondering if I missed something?

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We are putting the machine through final tests and going through the class details now

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Bumping this thread again for increased visibility. We’ll start reaching out to everyone very soon with sign up options for training sessions!

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Thanks @valerie, have filled out the form, looking forward to taking the class!

Emails have gone out to people on this. If you filled out the form and didn’t receive an email, please ping me on this thread!

I don’t think I did. I filled out the form this morning, so may have been too late. My need isn’t urgent or anything, but I’d like to learn eventually as all I knew before was Red!

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Thanks, that was totally my doof (froze the headers and didn’t realize I wasn’t scrolled to the top :doh: )

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I just sent an email out to everyone on the list with sessions to sign up for. One of them is at 2pm today (sorry short notice)! Please check your email for more info and ping me here if you didn’t get the email but were expecting it.

One more spot left in the 2p session today! Get on that email and sign up to grab it!

Also, FYI: There’s an opening at 7 pm tonight as well – I had initially claimed it, but later Stephen and I decided to go together on Friday night, so I moved my reservation to Friday.

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dibs :slight_smile:

dibs on which spot jon?

Jon got the 2p. The 7p slot is still open. Spreadsheet from email is the source of truth :awesome: