RAPILASER™ USER GUIDE ===================== RapiLaser™ User Guide v4.24.0 — September 19, 2026 Navigable version, with contents and search: https://rapilaser.com/en/guide/ PDF: https://rapilaser.com/en/guide/rapilaser-user-guide.pdf Markdown: https://rapilaser.com/en/guide/rapilaser-user-guide.md CONTENTS 1. Before you start 2. What RapiLaser is and what you need 3. Your first connection 4. The two screens 5. The Editor: designing 6. Layers: power, speed and passes 7. Text and images 8. Contour: the outline to cut the piece along 9. Vectorize: turning a photo into paths 10. The Personalizer: one design, many pieces 11. Files: saving, importing and exporting 12. From design to machine 13. Lining up the job with the material 14. Two aids so you do not engrave blind 15. Before starting a job: air and focus 16. Engraving 17. Rotary mode: engraving tumblers and cups 18. When something goes wrong 19. Your access code 20. Support 21. Legal notices 1. BEFORE YOU START =================== This guide takes you from turning the machine on for the first time all the way to engraving a tumbler. It is written for people who have never used a laser: if something seems obvious to you, skip it. The RapiLaser editor and Máquina (Machine) screen are in Spanish, so this guide writes button and menu names in Spanish, just as you will see them on screen, with their English meaning in parentheses the first time they appear. But do not skip this first page. [Diagram: Before every job — https://rapilaser.com/en/guide/img/06-seguridad.en.svg] A diode laser cuts, burns and can blind you ------------------------------------------- This is not a formality. The beam that engraves a board also goes straight through an eye, and the damage is permanent and instantaneous. Blinking will not protect you. - ALWAYS wear the safety glasses that came with your machine whenever it is switched on, even if you only want to “see where it points”. Sunglasses do not work. - Never leave a job running unattended. Engraving can set the material on fire, and it happens in seconds. - Ventilate. The smoke from some materials is toxic — PVC, for one, releases chlorine and also corrodes your machine. - Keep a fire extinguisher at hand. Not under a piece of furniture: at hand. - Never engrave materials you do not know. If you do not know what it is made of, do not put it in. The first time you open RapiLaser you will see a screen titled “Antes de empezar: seguridad con tu láser” (Before you start: laser safety), and you will have to tap “Entiendo y acepto” (I understand and accept) to continue. It is not a formality: read it. Unplugging the cable does NOT stop the machine ---------------------------------------------- This surprises everyone, so it is better to know it before than during. Your machine stores ahead of time the commands it is about to run. If you disconnect the USB in the middle of a job, it keeps moving and burning with what it already has stored — on modern boards that can be more than a minute. KEY IDEA: The only real stop is RapiLaser's STOP button, and it needs the connection to still be alive. Find it now: it is always at the top, in red, on every screen, and it stays there even when you scroll the page. If the application stops responding with the laser on, switch the machine off with its own power switch. 2. WHAT RAPILASER IS AND WHAT YOU NEED ====================================== RapiLaser is a program that runs inside your browser. Nothing gets installed: there is no program to download, no app from a store and no extension. With it you design what you want to engrave, and from that same place you control your laser machine and run the job. [Diagram: The whole journey — https://rapilaser.com/en/guide/img/01-flujo-general.en.svg] Your design never leaves your computer -------------------------------------- It is worth knowing because it changes what you can expect. All the heavy work —drawing, calculating the toolpath, sending the commands— happens in your browser. Your design and the file the machine runs travel directly from your computer to the laser, over the cable. They do not go through any server. That has two practical consequences. The good one: if the internet drops in the middle of a job, your engraving keeps going. The other one: your projects are saved inside the browser on THAT computer, so they do not show up on another one by themselves. To take them with you, you export them to a file. Which machines work ------------------- Diode laser machines with GRBL 1.1 firmware, which are the vast majority of those sold for home and workshop use: Atomstack, Sculpfun, Ortur, Creality Falcon, TwoTrees, Longer, NEJE, Comgrow and about a dozen more. The newer xTool models and LaserPecker do not work: they use a closed protocol of their own. WARNING: The connection is ALWAYS through a USB cable. There is no WiFi, no local network and no Bluetooth. Which browser and which device ------------------------------ [Diagram: Can your device talk to the machine? — https://rapilaser.com/en/guide/img/09-diagnostico.en.svg] Before buying or setting up anything, open the Diagnostic page. It is public, it does not need an access code, and in a few seconds it tells you whether your device can talk to your machine. On rapilaser.com there is a button that takes you there: “Check if my device is compatible”. The answer is at the very top and spelled out: “Good news — your device works with RapiLaser!” in green, or “Sorry, your device does not work with RapiLaser” in red, with the reason underneath. If the reason is that you came in through an address without the padlock, it says so: in that case the problem is not your device, it is the address. There you will see the “What this browser supports” panel, with seven rows. The ones that decide are “Web Serial (serial port)” on a computer, “WebUSB (USB port on Android)” on a phone, and “Secure context (HTTPS)”. Below, “Chosen medium” tells you which one the application will use. WARNING: On iPhone and iPad it is not possible to connect the machine, and switching browsers does not help: Chrome and Firefox on iOS use the same engine as Safari. It is a restriction imposed by Apple. You can design on the iPhone and run the job from another device. TIP: The diagnostic also reports “Project storage”. If it says “ERASED when you close the window”, you are in incognito mode or almost out of space: export anything you do not want to lose. 3. YOUR FIRST CONNECTION ======================== Step 1 — Turn the machine on BEFORE connecting ---------------------------------------------- WARNING: This order matters and almost nobody knows it. On most of these machines the USB chip is powered by the machine's own power supply: if the machine is off, your computer does not even see the port. If you turn it on afterwards, you have to try connecting again. Step 2 — Plug in the cable -------------------------- Use the USB cable that came with the machine. On Android, an OTG adapter. WARNING: THE CABLE IS FAILURE NUMBER ONE. Many USB cables and many OTG adapters only CHARGE and do not carry data. They look identical and cost less. With one of those, the browser's list comes up empty and no error explains why. Before you think something is broken, try another cable. Step 3 — Tap “Conectar” ----------------------- On the Máquina (Machine) screen, if your browser is compatible, you will see the “Conecta tu máquina en 4 pasos” (Connect your machine in 4 steps) assistant, which walks you through it. The steps get ticked off by themselves based on what the machine actually reports, not on your clicks: if something fails, the step is not ticked. When you tap “Conectar” (Connect), the BROWSER shows you its own list of devices. Pick yours — it usually shows up as “USB Serial” or with the name of the chip, normally CH340. That permission is granted by the browser, not by us, and it is only asked for once per computer. If the list comes up empty: check the cable, check that the machine is on, and on Windows check that you have the CH340 driver installed. You have to get that driver separately; RapiLaser mentions it but does not install it. WARNING: THE LASER HEAD MAY MOVE BY ITSELF WHEN YOU CONNECT. As soon as you tap “Conectar”, a seven-second notice appears that says “⚠ The machine is restarting for safety: the head CAN MOVE BY ITSELF to the corner. Keep your hands away until it stops.” It is true and it is not a fault: the first thing we do when connecting is clear the machine's memory, and several brands respond to that by sending the head to its corner. We do not order that; their firmware does it. The notice also appears when the connection comes back by itself after the cable gets tugged, and on the Diagnostic page. It does not cover the STOP and it can be closed. Step 4 — Let it identify itself ------------------------------- RapiLaser asks the machine who it is and how it is configured. You will see these states go by: “Abriendo el puerto…” (Opening the port…), “Identificando la máquina…” (Identifying the machine…), “Leyendo su configuración…” (Reading its settings…) and finally “Conectada y lista” (Connected and ready). From then on, an indicator tells you at every moment what the machine is doing — “En reposo” (Idle), “Ejecutando movimiento” (Running a move), “En pausa” (Paused), “Bloqueada por seguridad” (Locked for safety), “Cubierta abierta” (Lid open)… — and each one comes with a sentence that explains what it means. The safety check ---------------- When you connect, we check a setting on your machine called laser mode. If it is off, your machine would fire the beam while moving without engraving: it would burn lines where it was only supposed to travel. If we find it off you will see “Comprobación de seguridad” (Safety check) with the button “Activar el modo láser ($32=1)” (Turn on laser mode). WARNING: Without that setting no job runs. That is deliberate. TIP: It is the only setting on your machine that RapiLaser touches, and only if you ask for it with that button. We never change anything on our own. The access code --------------- The Editor and the Máquina screen ask for your license code, in the form RAPI-XXXX-XXXX, on the “Enter RapiLaser” screen. The diagnostic does NOT ask for it, on purpose: anyone must be able to check compatibility before anything else. To leave, “Sign out” is in the top bar. 4. THE TWO SCREENS ================== [Diagram: The two screens you will use — https://rapilaser.com/en/guide/img/07-pantallas.en.svg] The whole application is two screens, and you move between them with the top bar. That bar stays fixed at the top even when you scroll the page, on a computer and on a phone, so the STOP is always in sight. The top bar, the access screen, the Diagnostic and a few notices follow your browser's language, so in English the second tab reads “Machine”; what is inside the Editor and the Máquina screen stays in Spanish. In the EDITOR you draw and decide what gets engraved and how. In MÁQUINA (Machine) you control the device and run the job. Several important controls —connecting, the origin, the Apuntador, the Seguidor, Rodillo mode, and the Iniciar, Pausar and Reanudar buttons— are on both, so you do not have to go back and forth. In the Editor those machine controls appear in the toolbar when the machine is connected, and they come in the order you use them: “Origen 0,0” (Origin 0,0), “Origen aquí” (Origin here), the “Seguidor” (Follower) and the “Apuntador” (Pointer), and behind them the “Rodillo” (Rotary). The first four are the sequence for lining up the material —I set the zero, I correct it while looking at the design, I see where the head goes, I see where the beam points—; the Rodillo is not part of that series, it is a machine mode you turn on once, when you mount the accessory. The bar also has “User Guide”, which opens this guide in a new tab, with its contents and its search (rapilaser.com/en/guide); right next to it, “PDF” downloads it so you can print it or carry it offline. And at the end, “Sign out”. The Diagnostic is NOT a tab: it is a separate, public page, at app.rapilaser.com/diagnostics, which the button on the rapilaser.com home page also takes you to. To write to us there is “Problem or suggestion?”, with a speech bubble and a question mark. It lives ALWAYS in the top bar, between the Guide's “PDF” and “Sign out”, so it is the same in the Editor and in Máquina. On a phone and on medium-sized screens only the bubble stays, and the name appears when you hover over it. When you tap it, it offers two options, “Report a problem” and “Request an improvement”. With your license active, each one opens a form at the bottom of the screen, which does not cover the STOP, with an Español / English selector. You write what happened or what you would like, and, if you want, a contact email. When you report a problem, the version, the screen, your device and your machine's data at that moment are attached, with the last lines it ANSWERED; when you request an improvement, only the version, the screen and your device. Your design, your images, your G-code and what the application sends to the machine are never sent, and before sending, the checkbox you tick to agree tells you point by point what gets attached; the full detail is in the privacy notice, linked right there. When you send it you get a reference number and, if we have an email for you, a confirmation arrives in the language you chose. You can send up to three reports every 24 hours. Without a license, on the Diagnostic page, or if sending fails, it opens your email program with a message addressed to rapilaser@rapilaser.com, with the subject filled in and a few questions to answer. The CONSOLE —what gets sent to the machine and what it answers— is on the Máquina screen, at the bottom. That is where you see the firmware's errors in its own words. Sound ----- RapiLaser uses sounds to tell you what happens while you are not looking: that the machine connected, that the job finished, that it paused or resumed, that it went into alarm, that it rejected a command, and that you just closed a shape. An engraving lasts twenty minutes and almost nobody stays watching it. The speaker button turns them off and on. In the Editor it is in the toolbar, near the zoom button; in Máquina, in the “Trabajo” (Job) panel, next to “Láser activado” (Laser enabled) and “Seguidor”. It is on by default. When muted, NOTHING sounds, not even the alarm. 5. THE EDITOR: DESIGNING ======================== The toolbar ----------- First come the DRAWING tools: “Mano” (Hand), “Rectángulo” (Rectangle), “Elipse” (Ellipse), “Polígono” (Polygon), “Línea” (Line), “Curva” (Curve), “Lápiz” (Pencil) and “Texto” (Text). You tap the tool and then drag on the canvas to draw at whatever size you want. When you let go, it goes back to selection mode by itself. The “Mano” is the exception: it does not draw, it drags the view. It exists because on a trackpad there is no comfortable middle or right button, and without it there was no obvious way to move around. At the end of that SAME row, right after “Texto”, is the paint bucket; on screen its tooltip calls it “Bote de relleno” (Fill bucket). It does not draw: it stays on, and the next tap on a shape adds or removes its fill. Look for it there, among the drawing tools, and not among the buttons that come afterwards. TIP: With the bucket on, the cursor changes to an arrow with a drop. The TIP of that arrow is the exact point that will be filled: the bucket does not fill the shape you touch, it fills the closed area around that point. WARNING: CONFUSION NUMBER ONE: with a drawing tool armed, a click does not select: it places. But only once — when you place the shape the tool switches itself off and you are back to selecting. The ones that do NOT switch off by themselves are the “Mano” and the paint bucket: they stay on until you tap them again. If you feel the canvas “does not respond”, look at the bar: the tool that is on shows in orange. Escape switches off whichever it is. The ARROW, at the start of the row, is the selection tool, and it is the one the editor switches back to by itself when you finish drawing. You can also get there by tapping it. The “Polígono” comes with two buttons, “Un lado más” (One more side) and “Un lado menos” (One less side), to choose the number of sides BEFORE drawing; it can also be a star. The “Curva” is a simple arc: you mark the start and the end, and then drag the handle to give it its curvature. THE POLYGON BECOMES FIXED WHEN YOU LET IT GO. While it is still selected right after drawing it, you can change its sides, make it a star and adjust its radius, and it has four handles at the corners to scale it without distorting it. As soon as you deselect it, it turns into a fixed shape: you can no longer change its sides, but in exchange it gets all eight handles —including the middle ones— and you can stretch it wider or taller like any other shape. TIP: If you let it go too early, Ctrl+Z gives you back the polygon with its sides again. After that come the buttons that WORK ON what you already drew, in this order: “Deshacer” (Undo), “Rehacer” (Redo) and “Eliminar la selección” (Delete the selection); then, after a thin divider, “Copiar” (Copy), “Centrar horizontalmente” (Center horizontally), “Centrar verticalmente” (Center vertically), “Espejo horizontal” (Mirror horizontally), “Espejo vertical” (Mirror vertically), “Agrupar” (Group), “Desagrupar” (Ungroup), “Ordenar” (Arrange) —which opens a menu with the four ways to change what sits on top—, “Contorno para cortar” (Contour for cutting), “Vectorizar imagen” (Vectorize image), “Recortar pieza” (Cut out piece), “Unir figuras” (Merge shapes), the “Prueba de material” (Material test) and the “Personalizador” (Personalizer). Almost all of them are disabled when using them makes no sense, and their explanation appears when you leave the cursor over them. Picking what you want, and only that ------------------------------------ With the arrow on, a click picks the object on TOP. If what you were after is underneath, click again ON THE SAME SPOT: each click goes down one more, and when it reaches the bottom it starts again from the top. It is the way to get to a covered shape without moving the one on top. - Ctrl and a click ADD to what you already had selected (on a Mac, Cmd). Shift does the same. - With the Z key held down, a click REMOVES from the selection; on something that was not selected it does nothing. It is useful for building a large selection and then taking one piece out of it. - Dragging over empty space draws a box, and it takes whatever lies ENTIRELY inside. Anything it only touches does not get in, so you can enclose a piece tucked in between others. TIP: While you hold the Z key down you cannot type into a selected text: let go of it and you are done. It is the price of having “remove” on a single key. Freehand drawing ---------------- The “Lápiz” tool draws freehand: you drag and the stroke stays. Your hand's shake is not stored point by point — the stroke simplifies itself, keeping the points that really describe the shape. The pencil does NOT snap to the grid, on purpose: doing so would mean fighting your hand. And if you finish the stroke close to where you started it, the shape starts out already closed. The canvas ---------- The canvas represents your machine's bed in real millimeters. The rulers along the edges tell you where everything is. - Mouse wheel: zooms in and out. The point under the cursor is brought to the center of the screen. - Middle button or right button, dragging: moves the view. - On a touch screen: pinch with two fingers. - The “Mano” tool drags the view with any pointer, including your finger and the trackpad. - You can move the view until the far corner of the bed sits under the rulers — handy for working comfortably on something close to the bottom or right edge. On the origin side it does not move: no gap ever opens between the corner of the bed and the rulers. - The button that shows the percentage brings the view back to fit everything. If you overshoot while moving around and the bed leaves the view, that button brings you back. - An object that goes outside the work area is marked in red and the notice “N fuera del área” (N outside the area) appears. The canvas color ---------------- At the end of the top row, after “Enviar a Máquina” (Send to Machine), there are four little squares with a sample of each background: “Lienzo negro, como siempre” (Black canvas, as always), “Madera clara, tipo balsa” (Light wood, balsa-like), “Madera MDF, más oscura” (MDF wood, darker) and “Blanco aperlado” (Pearl white). They let you see how your design would look on the material. It is only a view: it does not change anything that gets engraved. - On black, each layer shows in ITS own color, as always. - On balsa, what you draw shows in midnight blue; on MDF, in black; and on pearl white, in lamp black. It is the ink that reads best on each material. - The layers of a VECTORIZED image do not change with the background: they stay in their gray, because that gray is what tells you how dark each tone will come out. TIP: On the three light backgrounds, the selection is marked in orange instead of light blue, which would not show there. For the same reason, what you are still drawing —the shape while you drag it, the pencil stroke, the dotted line when you move an end and the crop frame— comes out in midnight blue, almost black, and the big numbers that appear when you change the size come out in dark gray. And the background you choose stays set the next time you open the application on that computer. Selecting and moving -------------------- - Click to select. Shift and click to add to the selection. - Drag over an empty area to draw a marquee and select several. - A design with a huge number of paths —a vectorized logo, for example— drags just as smoothly. While you drag it the selection box is not shown, and it comes back when you let go; and when you let go “Colocando el diseño…” (Placing the design…) may appear for a few seconds while each path settles in. - While you drag, rotate or scale something, Ctrl+Z, the keyboard arrows and the mouse wheel do nothing: they count again as soon as you let go. What you see when you let go is what stays; if you did not like it, let go and press Ctrl+Z, which undoes the whole move. - Ctrl+A selects everything on VISIBLE layers. Anything on a layer with its eye turned off is left out. - The keyboard arrows move the selection 1 mm. With Shift, 10 mm. With Alt, a tenth of a millimeter. - Ctrl+C copies, Ctrl+X cuts and Ctrl+V pastes — also from one project to another. - The “Copiar” button in the bar leaves the copy already placed, shifted a little and selected, ready to drag. The Delete key removes it. - Ctrl+D does the same as the “Copiar” button. - Ctrl+Z undoes and Ctrl+Shift+Z redoes, up to a hundred steps back. WARNING: On a phone there is no Ctrl+V, so you cannot paste from one project to another; you can duplicate with the “Copiar” button, which is the common case. WARNING: There is no line width: the thickness you see on screen is only there so you can see it, and it does not change what the machine engraves. Centering and grouping ---------------------- “Centrar horizontalmente” and “Centrar verticalmente” line objects up WITH EACH OTHER, not against the bed, and they need two or more. The adverb names the direction they move in: “centrar horizontalmente” shifts them left and right. They are centered against the rectangle that encloses all of them —their bounding box—, which is what solves the real-world case: with a big panel and a small opening inside it, the bounding box IS the panel, so the panel does not move and the opening lands right in its center. “Agrupar” makes several objects get selected and move as one; “Desagrupar” lets them go. A contour that closes groups itself, without you having to remember. “Unir figuras” is something else, and it is best not to confuse it with grouping: it takes two or more closed shapes that touch and fuses them into ONE, with a single outline on the outside. Grouping keeps them separate and only moves them together; merging changes the geometry, and that is why the cut goes around the outside and not along the line where they touched. The holes that no shape covers are kept. Also with Ctrl+G to group and Ctrl+Shift+G to ungroup. What sits on top: the order --------------------------- When two shapes overlap, one sits ON TOP of the other. The “Ordenar” button in the bar changes that order for whatever you have selected: tapping it opens a menu with four options, from top to bottom: “Traer al frente” (Bring to front) puts it above everything, “Subir un lugar” (Move up one) moves it up one, “Bajar un lugar” (Move down one) moves it down one and “Enviar al fondo” (Send to back) leaves it below everything. - An option that does not apply shows as disabled and tells you why when you leave the cursor over it: something already on top of everything cannot go any higher. If there is nothing to arrange, the whole button is disabled. - The menu closes when you choose, when you tap outside it or with Escape. - With the keyboard, without opening the menu: Ctrl+} to the front, Ctrl+] up one, Ctrl+[ down one and Ctrl+{ to the back. Each shortcut also appears in gray to the right of its option. Each change is ONE undo step. The order applies WITHIN EACH LAYER: what is at the back gets engraved first and what is at the front, last. It does not change the order of the layers, which is still set by the “Capas” (Layers) panel. Mirror ------ The two mirror buttons flip the selection: one left to right and the other top to bottom, WITHOUT changing its size. The axis goes through the center of the whole selection, so a drawing made of several pieces is flipped as a whole and not piece by piece in place. Also with Ctrl+Shift+H and Ctrl+Shift+V. IMAGES get flipped too, and they get flipped for real: what you see on the canvas is what the machine will engrave, and the same goes for their contour, their crop and the SVG file you export. A flipped photo does not move or change size. WARNING: Only TEXT stays as it is, and the notice tells you how many were left unflipped: its letters cannot be mirrored without ceasing to be letters. The Properties panel -------------------- It is to the right of the canvas, above the “Capas” panel. On a phone both of them sit below the drawing, so you have to scroll down a little to see them. With an object selected, the fields specific to its type appear at the top, and at the bottom the same ones always appear: “X” and “Y” —where it is—, “Rotación” (Rotation) in degrees, the “Ajustar a la cuadrícula” (Snap to grid) checkbox, the “Capa” (Layer) selector and the “Eliminar” (Delete) button. And what is specific to each type is this: - Rectangle and ellipse: “Ancho” (Width), “Alto” (Height) and the “Relleno” (Fill) checkbox. If the width and the height do not match, there is also “Hacer cuadrado (alto = ancho)” (Make square, height = width) —or “Hacer círculo (alto = ancho)” (Make circle) on the ellipse—, which makes them equal with one tap. It is the keyboard-free way: on a phone there is no Shift key to hold while you draw. - Polygon: “Lados” (Sides), with two buttons to remove and add sides; “Radio” (Radius); the “Estrella” (Star) checkbox; if you turn it on, “Radio interior” (Inner radius); and its “Relleno” checkbox. - Line: “ΔX” and “ΔY”. That Δ is a Greek letter that here means “how far it goes”: how far the line runs across and up or down from where it starts. - Curve: the same “ΔX” and “ΔY”, plus “Curva X” and “Curva Y” (Curve X and Y), which are the point the bulge of the curve GOES THROUGH. - Loose path —the pencil's, the one that comes from an imported file, or a polygon that has already become fixed—: it tells you how many points it is made of, and it has its “Relleno” checkbox. - Image: “Ancho”, “Alto”, the “Trama” (Dithering) —with a note underneath about which one suits each material—, the “Recortar” (Crop) button, the “Ajustes de la imagen” (Image adjustments) section and the “Ver como se grabará” (Preview as engraved) checkbox. “Quitar recorte” (Remove crop) appears next to “Recortar” only when that photo is already cropped. - Text: the “Texto” itself, the “Fuente” (Font) with its “Del equipo…” (From this computer…) and “Archivo…” (File…) buttons, the “Tamaño” (Size), the “Alineación” (Alignment) and “Relleno”. With SEVERAL objects selected the panel shows no numbers: only how many there are, “Ajustar a la cuadrícula”, “Capa” and “Eliminar”. And with nothing selected it does not stay empty either: it keeps the “Ajustar a la cuadrícula” checkbox, which governs the next thing you draw, and reminds you of your machine's work area in millimeters. TIP: A change is applied when you leave the field or press Enter — and each one counts as ONE undo step, so that Ctrl+Z does not erase your word letter by letter. And if you change your mind before confirming, Escape puts the field back to its previous value. Resizing without distorting --------------------------- The CORNER handles keep the proportions: the shape grows and shrinks without distorting. The MIDDLE ones stretch along a single axis, their own. It is the convention of any drawing program, and there is nothing to turn on. If you really want to distort from a corner, hold Shift while you drag. While you drag you will see TWO BIG NUMBERS on the canvas with the percentage on each axis relative to the size it had when you started. They help you land on 100%,100% when you did not want to change it, or on 50%,50% when you want exactly half. Under each percentage, in smaller type, the measurement in millimeters appears —the width under the X and the height under the Y—, which is what will end up in “Ancho” and “Alto” when you let go. Snap to grid ------------ The “Ajustar a la cuadrícula” checkbox makes what you draw and move stick to the lines of the grid. Since the grid adapts to the zoom, the magnet gets finer the closer you zoom in. It lives in the Properties panel, and it is ALWAYS there, also when you have nothing selected: it governs the next thing you draw, not only what is already there. It comes turned on, and it remembers what you choose — if you turn it off, it is still off the next time you open the application on that computer. Editing a line by its ends -------------------------- Select a line or a curve and you will see a ring at each end. Drag a ring and that end moves while the other one stays still. That is stretching, trimming and rotating all at once: when drawing they are the same thing, moving an end. While you drag, the original line stays in place and a dotted line shows you how it is going to look. The rings are see-through on purpose, so you can see the stroke underneath — which is exactly what you need to look at to line things up. Joining ends and closing shapes ------------------------------- If you bring the end of a path within 1.56 mm of the end of another, they snap together by themselves and you will see the notice “Se unieron los trazos” (The paths were joined). While you drag, a green ring appears over the point it is going to snap to, so you know what is going to happen before you let go. KEY IDEA: The magnet OVERRIDES the grid: if there is an end nearby, the point goes there even if snapping to the grid would have taken it somewhere else. Joining is not cosmetic: when the file is generated those two paths come out as one continuous route, without turning the laser off in between. When cutting, it is the difference between a whole piece and a weak spot. And from the moment they join they move TOGETHER: you grab either of the two and both go. A Ctrl+Z undoes the join. TIP: If you tap the notice while it is on screen, you undo that join without losing the path. When the shape closes --------------------- When the join CLOSES the outline, a new shape is created. You will notice it by three things at once: a short tone sounds, the green notice “Figura cerrada: ya es un objeto y se puede rellenar” (Shape closed: it is now an object and can be filled) appears, and the whole outline ends up selected. - From that moment it moves as a WHOLE: you grab any of its paths and they all go together. - And it can be filled like a circle or a square. Turn on the paint bucket and tap INSIDE the shape: the paths fuse into ONE filled shape. - A Ctrl+Z undoes the whole closing, or gives you back the loose paths if you had already fused them. Cutting out a piece and taking it with you ------------------------------------------ Select a CLOSED outline —a shape, a closed freehand stroke, or the paths that make up a shape— and tap “Recortar pieza”. From every other shape, the part that was inside it is SEPARATED —like lifting a piece out of a jigsaw puzzle— and the shape you used as the cutter is used up, like a cookie cutter: it disappears from where it was. Its SHAPE, on the other hand, goes with the lifted piece: what gets separated is a piece closed by that outline, not loose bits. The piece is also moved aside a couple of millimeters and left selected, ready for you to drag wherever you want it. - The separated piece is shifted a couple of millimeters so you can see it, and it stays SELECTED: drag it wherever you want, or delete it with Delete. - Texts and images are skipped, and the notice tells you how many. A text would have to stop being text to be cut; an image already has its own “Recortar” in Properties. - What survives are OUTLINES. If the shape that got cut had a fill, the part that is left no longer fills by itself: it is almost never a closed region. - It works with anything: a loose line gets cut just like a circle. WARNING: Everything the shape covers gets cut, whether it is in front of or behind it in the drawing. A Ctrl+Z brings everything back at once. 6. LAYERS: POWER, SPEED AND PASSES ================================== [Diagram: Layers: a set of laser parameters — https://rapilaser.com/en/guide/img/08-capas.en.svg] A layer is a set of laser parameters. Everything you put on the same layer gets engraved the same way. The “Capas” panel is on the right, just below the Properties panel, with “+ Capa” (+ Layer) to add one. The typical case: one layer to engrave the drawing at low power and high speed, and another to cut the outline at high power, low speed, in several passes. Which layer what you draw lands on, and how to change layers ------------------------------------------------------------ In the “Capas” list there is always one layer marked: its background looks lighter, and it is the one whose parameters appear below the list. Everything you draw goes onto THAT layer. To change which one it is, tap its row before drawing. To move something you have ALREADY drawn, select it and use the “Capa” selector in the Properties panel. That selector is the only way to change an object's layer: you do not drag them from one list to another, and there is no “move to” button. TIP: It works for several at once: select them all and choose the layer just once. If what you have selected is spread across different layers, the selector shows “—”; as soon as you choose one, they all go to it. WARNING: If something comes out engraved with a power or a speed you did not expect, first check which layer it ended up on. It was drawn on whichever layer was marked, which is not always the one you think. What you decide on each layer ----------------------------- - “Modo” (Mode): engrave or cut. - “Potencia” (Power), as a percentage. At 0 % the path is traced without turning the laser on, which is useful for testing. - “Velocidad” (Speed), in millimeters per minute. Slower burns more. - “Pasadas” (Passes): how many times to repeat the path. It is what you use to cut thick material. - “Intervalo” (Line interval): how close together the lines are when filling. Closer together is slower and darker. - “Asistencia de aire” (Air assist): whether the air pump should blow while this layer is engraved. The air pushes away the smoke —which, if it stays on top, absorbs part of the beam— and cools the material: less charring around the cut and cleaner edges. New layers start with the air turned ON. WARNING: Air from the application only works if your pump is connected to the machine's board. If you turn it on by hand with its own switch, this checkbox changes nothing. To find out, on the Máquina screen there is the “Probar aire” (Test air) button: it turns the pump on for four seconds and then asks you whether you heard it blowing. Check it BEFORE doing a material test with the air as an axis — if your pump does not obey, the “with air” and “without air” columns come out identical and you end up blaming the wood. WARNING: Sometimes you will see “(hereda)” (inherits) in amber next to the name: it shows up in projects saved before this checkbox existed, and also on the layers that arrive when you import a LightBurn project. It means that layer says nothing about the air: the machine stays as it was, blowing or quiet, depending on what the previous layer left. One tap turns the air on for that layer; a second tap turns it off, and then it is an explicit “no”, which will switch the pump off when it gets there. Each layer also has a color —only so you can tell them apart on screen— and an eye to show or hide it. You change the color by tapping the circle, which opens eight colors to choose from; the name, by double-clicking on it. WARNING: Layers run IN ORDER, from top to bottom. Put the cut last: if you cut first, the piece comes loose from the material and everything that comes after it ends up shifted. You reorder them with “Subir capa” (Move layer up) and “Bajar capa” (Move layer down). WARNING: “Eliminar capa” (Delete layer) ALSO deletes all its objects. If it has objects we ask you to confirm; if it is empty, it is deleted without asking. Ctrl+Z brings it back, but only as long as you do not close the tab. WARNING: A HIDDEN layer is not drawn on screen and it is not engraved either: nothing of it goes into the file, even though it is still there. And if you hide ALL the layers that have something on them, “Enviar a Máquina” is disabled, because for the application there is nothing left to engrave. If the button is gray and you do not understand why, check the layers' eyes. Fill ---- Rectangles, ellipses, polygons and texts can be filled. Turn on the paint bucket in the bar and tap a shape: it toggles its fill. Escape switches it off. There is also a “Relleno” checkbox in Properties. With an outline made of loose paths —lines or curves joined by their ends— tap INSIDE the gap, as you would with any bucket. The paths fuse into a single filled shape, and a Ctrl+Z gives them back loose. It also works if the outline MIXES a freehand stroke that closed by itself with straight lines hanging from its two ends —the scribble on top, the straight lines below—. Even if the scribble was already a closed shape, tap inside the lower part and the WHOLE body gets filled, just as you see it: the invisible line that closed the scribble does not split it in two. TIP: If there is a closed shape inside another, the bucket fills the one that fits MOST TIGHTLY around the point you tapped. There is a detail people use a lot: a filled shape inside another filled shape, on the same layer, leaves a hole. A circle inside another circle is a donut. That is how you make holes without complicated tools. The material test: where the numbers come from ---------------------------------------------- The question “what power and what speed do I use on THIS material?” does not have an answer that can be written in a manual. It depends on your machine, your diode, the wood you bought and even the humidity. That is why there is a button that answers it for you: “Prueba de material”. It generates a card where each cell is engraved with different settings. You engrave it, look at it, pick the cell that came out best and use those numbers in your design. 1. Choose whether you are going to test ENGRAVING (with fill) or CUTTING (outline). 2. Choose TWO things that change —speed, power, interval, passes or air—: one across the columns and another down the rows, each with its range. 3. Say what size you want the whole card to be. 4. Tap “Crear la prueba” (Create the test). The card comes out already labeled, and from there it is sent to the machine like any other design. Before creating it, look at the “Reemplazar todo el lienzo” (Replace the whole canvas) checkbox. It comes TURNED ON, which means the card replaces everything on the canvas. Turn it off if you would rather the card be ADDED to what you already have: then nothing gets deleted, your layers stay where they were and your project keeps its name. In both cases, a Ctrl+Z brings everything back. In step 2, each axis takes one row. It starts by saying whether it is “Columnas” (Columns) or “Renglones” (Rows), then what is going to change, and then come the three numbers: from how much, “a” (to) how much and “en” (in) how many steps. On the right, in gray, is the allowed range; for speed that limit is set by YOUR machine when it is connected, and it says so with “(de tu máquina)” (from your machine). Two of the five do not take the three numbers. If you choose “Aire” (Air) as an axis there is no range to type: there are two states, so it tests with air and without air. And if you choose “Pasadas”, the steps are not typed: they come out of the range by themselves, because a pass and a half does not exist. TIP: “Pasos geométricos” (Geometric steps) concentrates the samples at the low end of the range, which is where the material really changes. From 100 to 3 000 it gives 100 · 234 · 548 · 1 282 · 3 000 instead of spreading them out evenly. Below the axes there is a block titled “Con qué se graba lo demás” (What everything else is engraved with). There you find the parameters you did NOT choose as an axis, and they are used THE SAME in every cell: if in an engraving you test speed against power, that is where you decide the interval, the passes and the air. It is the fixed baseline you compare against, and that is why the card repeats it afterwards: the numbers in the header and the air in the bottom corner. WARNING: Check that block before creating the card. A value out of range gets trimmed by itself, and then the test is not engraved with what you asked for without anything telling you. That is why every field you type into has the allowed range next to it, in gray. WARNING: With that checkbox on, which is how it comes, the card REPLACES whatever you have on the canvas WITHOUT asking: no confirmation window appears. Ctrl+Z brings it back whole, so nothing is lost — but save your design first if it gives you peace of mind. The window stays open after the card is created, and the notice “Listo: la prueba está en el editor” (Done: the test is in the editor) appears. That is on purpose: it almost never comes out right the first time, and this way you change a range and generate again without having to open it again. Close it with the ✕ when you are done. The card comes out labeled with everything you need to read it months later: the header lists the settings used for everything that does not vary, the two axes are named with their values, and in the bottom-left corner the word “Grabado” (Engrave) or “Corte” (Cut) appears together with whether the air was on. That corner is the gap where the two axes cross and it takes no space from anything. ON THE CANVAS, the card is shown in grays on a white sheet of its exact size: each cell in the gray of the ENERGY it is going to deposit. The one that burns most —more power, more passes, less speed, less spacing between lines— looks almost black, and the one that burns least, almost white. That way you see at a glance which corner the card leans toward before you spend any wood. And all its labels stay at least 3 mm from the edge, so that cutting it out along its frame does not take any of them away. TIP: Do not be surprised if many cells look similarly light: that is faithful to what is going to happen. Energy is not spread evenly, and finding which corner of the range holds the useful band is exactly what the card is for. TIP: The Material test window is dragged by its title bar, just like the Personalizer's, in case it covers what you want to look at. At the bottom of the window, next to “Cancelar” (Cancel) and “Crear la prueba”, there are five numbered “Memorias” (Memories), like the station buttons on a radio. - An empty memory looks like a dimmed outline. Tap it: it asks you for a name and, when you confirm with “Guardar” (Save), what you have set right now goes inside it. The name is shown under the button. - A full memory is shown in color: one tap LOADS the whole of it — the mode, the two axes with their ranges, the geometric steps, everything else and the size. - To overwrite a full memory, press and hold it for a moment. That is also where “Vaciar” (Empty) appears, in case you would rather free it up. TIP: Even if you save nothing, the window opens again with the last thing you created, so changing a range and testing again does not mean redoing everything. The memories live in this browser, like the projects: they do not travel to another computer. The labels are engraved with a simple single-stroke lettering, not with the outline of a typeface. It reads just as well and takes a fraction of the time: labeling a card goes from a minute and a half to a few seconds, and that time is yours. 7. TEXT AND IMAGES ================== Text ---- With the “Texto” tool, tap the canvas and type. To edit a text that already exists, double-click on it, or simply start typing with the text selected. Six typefaces come included: Inter, Inter Fina, Lora, Pacifico, Bungee and JetBrains Mono. If you want another one, the Properties panel has two ways. “Del equipo…” lets you choose among the fonts installed on your computer, and it only appears there: on a phone that button does not show up. “Archivo…” accepts a .ttf, .otf or .woff file, and it is the way that does work on a phone. WARNING: A .woff2 file cannot be used yet: when you choose it you will see the notice “Ese archivo es .woff2 y aún no lo podemos leer” (That file is .woff2 and we cannot read it yet). Get the same font as .ttf, .otf or .woff. TIP: The font you choose is copied into your project. If you give the .rpl to someone else, the text looks the same for them even if they do not have that typeface installed. Images and photos ----------------- Images come in through the formats bar, with the “JPG ↓” button — it accepts PNG, JPG and WebP. Once placed, it moves, rotates and scales like any other shape. In Properties you choose the “Trama”, that is, how the photo is turned into burned dots. There are four; if you do not know which one, try Atkinson, which usually works best on wood with a diode laser. - Transparent areas are NOT engraved. They stay as the material. - With “Recortar” you choose which part gets engraved. It can be undone: “Quitar recorte” gives you back the whole photo, with no loss. In “Ajustes de la imagen” you correct the photo without leaving the program: “Negativo” (Negative), “Auto balance”, “Brillo” (Brightness), “Contraste” (Contrast) and “Gamma”. What you adjust is shown on the canvas, gets engraved, gets exported, and it is the photo that “Contorno para cortar” and “Vectorizar imagen” use. “Restablecer” (Reset) puts it back as it came, and each slider is undone in a single step. As soon as you change something two buttons appear: “Listo” (Done) accepts the adjustments and clears the selection, and “Cancelar” returns the photo to the tone it had before you started adjusting it. - “Auto balance” only looks at the part that is visible: if you cropped the photo, it stretches the grays of what you kept, not those of the whole file. TIP: Tick “Ver como se grabará” to see on the canvas the dots the laser is going to burn, with the “Trama”, the layer's “Intervalo” and your adjustments. The gray of each dot is the layer's “Potencia”: at 100 % it looks black and at 40 % light gray, just as a layer at that power is painted. It is only a view: it does not change what gets engraved. The checkbox is remembered in that browser, so the next time you open the editor it is still as you left it. With a very large image and a very fine interval it is shown with its adjustments but without dithering, and the panel tells you so. WARNING: A photo with detail generates hundreds of thousands of lines and can take hours. The setting that matters is the layer's “Intervalo”: raising it from 0.1 to 0.2 mm cuts the time in half. 8. CONTOUR: THE OUTLINE TO CUT THE PIECE ALONG ============================================== If you are going to CUT OUT what you engraved —a keychain, a tag, an ornament— you need a line around the outside of the drawing for the cut to follow. Drawing it by hand, segment by segment, is what everyone did until now, and it has two problems: it takes effort, and when you want to change the spacing you have to redo it entirely. “Contorno para cortar” makes it by itself, and leaves it LINKED to your drawing: the spacing can be adjusted whenever you want and the outline redoes itself. How to use it ------------- 1. Select what you want to wrap. It can be a shape, several, a text, a photo, or all of them together. 2. Tap “Contorno para cortar”. The outline appears and, next to the piece, a small window titled “Separación del contorno” (Contour spacing). 3. Move the slider and watch the outline change on the canvas. You can also type the exact number in the field on the left. 4. When you like it, tap “Listo” or simply click outside. The contour stays fixed. If you were not convinced, tap “Cancelar”: the contour goes away and your drawing is left as it was. TIP: The small window places itself to one side of your piece and does NOT cover it. If it does not fit on the right, it moves to the left by itself; and if the piece is so wide that there is no room on either side, it goes underneath. The contour is created on the ACTIVE LAYER and inherits its settings. That matters: the layer you create it from is the one that decides the power and speed it will be cut with. The usual thing is to have an engraving layer and a cutting layer, and to create the contour with the cutting one active. It is GROUPED with what it wraps, so moving or rotating it takes everything along together, without getting out of place. WARNING: The spacing is the distance to the DRAWING, not an adjustment for the width of the cut. The beam removes a few tenths of a millimeter (the kerf) on each side; if you need the piece to come out at an exact size, do a test first. Wrapping a single thing or wrapping everything ---------------------------------------------- With several pieces selected you get ONE single contour that takes all of them in, not one per piece. And if they are so close that their outlines touch, they merge into a single silhouette: that is correct, because cutting there would be cutting the same line twice. Raise the spacing and you will see several loose pieces join into a single shape; lower it and they separate again. It is the fastest way to decide whether you want separate cutouts or a single plate. INNER holes do not get a contour: the hole of an “O” or the middle of a donut do not get a cutting outline, because the contour is where the piece separates from the material, and that hole does not separate. With photos and images ---------------------- When you contour an image, the small window offers two more buttons: - “Rectángulo” (Rectangle) wraps the photo along its edge, as it is. It is what you want for cutting a rectangular plate with the photo inside. - “Silueta” (Silhouette) follows the SHAPE of what is inside the photo. It is what you want for cutting out the figure and throwing away the background. If the image is a PNG with transparency, the silhouette comes from the file itself and is exact. If it is a JPG —which has no transparency— RapiLaser has to DEDUCE where the drawing ends, and for that a second slider appears, “Qué tanto es dibujo” (How much is drawing): move it until the outline hugs what you want and leaves out what you do not. TIP: That slider spreads its whole travel over the tones YOUR photo really uses, so both ends always do something and the change is even from one end to the other. If you gave the photo a CROP, the contour respects what is visible: it wraps the cropped part, not the whole file. WARNING: With a photo that has a busy background or little contrast, the silhouette is not going to come out well however much you move the slider. In that case it is better to crop the photo first, or to use “Rectángulo”. With text --------- Text can be contoured too, both the text you type in the application and the text that comes in an SVG. The letters are converted to their real shape —the same one they will be engraved with, and with the same spacing between letters you see on the canvas— and the outline wraps them. TIP: With low spacing, each letter gets its own outline; raising it, the letters join until they end up as a single tag around the word. Try 2 and 8 millimeters and you will see both things. If you used a font of your own and for some reason it cannot be read, that text is left out of the contour and we tell you: everything else gets contoured, instead of doing nothing. Changing your mind ------------------ While the small window is open, Escape cancels the whole contour and leaves your drawing as it was, just like the “Cancelar” button. If you regret having canceled, Ctrl+Y brings it back. “Cancelar” is disabled if in the meantime you changed something outside the small window —you moved the piece, you undid something—, because restoring your drawing would take that change away too. The same goes for the Vectorize window. In “Ajustes de la imagen”, on the other hand, Escape only clears the selection: the only thing that reverts the adjustments is its “Cancelar” button. If you already accepted it and later want a different spacing, select it and tap “Contorno para cortar” again. If you delete the shape it wrapped, the contour does NOT disappear: it stays as a loose path, in case you wanted it that way. 9. VECTORIZE: TURNING A PHOTO INTO PATHS ======================================== A photo is engraved dot by dot, like a printer. Vectorizing is something else: it turns the photo into PATHS —lines the laser follows— and with them you can engrave by gray levels, cut the silhouette, or both. It is what you need to turn a logo into a cut-out piece. How to use it ------------- 1. Select the image and tap “Vectorizar imagen”. A small window opens next to the piece. 2. Choose what for: “Grabar” (Engrave), “Cortar” (Cut) or “Ambos” (Both). You can change your mind as many times as you want; the drawing is redone each time. 3. Adjust “Tonos de gris” (Gray tones) and the “Más detalle / Más limpio” (More detail / Cleaner) slider until you like what you see on the canvas. While it works you will see a spinning ring and a percentage: with 7 tones and a large photo it takes a couple of seconds, and that way you know it did not get stuck. 4. Tap “Listo”. The paths become normal shapes, which you can move, scale and edit. If you were not convinced, tap “Cancelar”: the paths and their layers go away, and your image is back as it was. Each gray level lands on ITS OWN LAYER, and each layer is created with the power that corresponds to it: light tones at low power, dark ones at higher power. That is why when it finishes you will see several new layers, not one. KEY IDEA: WHITE IS NOT ENGRAVED. The lightest tone of your drawing is the untouched material —the raw wood, the paper—, so it does not create a layer and the laser does not even pass there. That is why the numbers are 1, 3 and 7 and not 2, 4 and 8: it is how many grays LEAVE A MARK, with white set apart. On the canvas, each layer is painted in the gray of its TONE: the average gray of the part of the photo it traces. That way what you see looks like the photo, and the power it will burn with comes from that same tone: the darkest tone, with the highest. TIP: If the dark grays get lost on the black canvas, change the canvas color to one of the woods or to pearl white (see “The canvas color”). The grays of the vectorized image stay as they are: only what is behind them changes. TIP: While you drag a slider you see the result on the fly, with the same grays, the same size and the same cutting color it is going to end up with. When you let go, what you are seeing goes EXACTLY AS IT IS into your design, even if you release the mouse outside the slider. The four everyday controls -------------------------- - “Grabar / Cortar / Ambos” decides what comes out: patches of gray to burn, the outside line to cut out, or both. - “Tonos de gris” is how many grays are going to leave a mark. With 1 you get black and white —a single layer, the black one—; with 7 it already looks like a screen-printed photo. Each jump doubles the detail, and also the time it takes. There are no more than 7: with more grays it became very slow, and a photo that really needs them engraves better with its dithering. - “Más detalle / Más limpio” is the slider you will use most: toward “detalle” it keeps down to the last speck, toward “limpio” it keeps the big shapes and throws away the noise. Curved edges come out round, not in straight segments, and corners stay sharp. - “Potencia claro” (Light power) and “Potencia oscuro” (Dark power) are the two extremes the layers are spread between. - Below, “Potencia de cada capa” (Power of each layer) shows how hard each one is going to burn —“Capa 2 · 21 %” (Layer 2 · 21 %)—, from the lightest to the darkest and with its gray. It changes live while you move any slider, and it is exactly the power that is going to be engraved. Each layer carries the same number as in the Layers panel. WARNING: With a lot of paths the canvas gets slow to move or zoom. From five thousand on we warn you; with “Más limpio” or fewer tones you get far fewer. TIP: A one-ink logo —black on white— gets engraved whole even if you ask for a single tone: there are no two grays to share out there, and the drawing is simply the drawing. The “Imagen” section: retouching the gray before tracing -------------------------------------------------------- It comes folded, and most of the time you do not need to open it. It is useful when the photo does not have good contrast and the result comes out poor because of that, not because of the tracing. TIP: If the photo already has “Ajustes de la imagen” in Properties, Vectorize starts from the ADJUSTED photo and these controls are applied on top. That is why a “Negativo” set in both places cancels out. - “Negativo” inverts lights and darks. It is what you need when the drawing is lighter than its background —chalk on a blackboard, a white logo—: without it, it gets engraved at the minimum and can hardly be seen. - “Auto-balance de la Imagen Original” (Auto-balance of the original image) stretches the PHOTO's tones so that its darkest gray reaches black and its lightest reaches white. The boundaries between layers stay where they were, so, just like “Brillo” or “Contraste”, what changes is WHICH areas land on each layer: the darks move to the dark layers and the lights to the light ones. For washed-out or poorly lit photos. - “Brillo” lightens or darkens everything equally: raise it and less area gets engraved, lower it and more does. - “Contraste” spreads the grays apart or pulls them together around middle gray: raise it and the darkest layer grows at the expense of the middle ones; lower it and the image flattens and fewer layers come out. - “Gamma” moves only the MIDDLE tones, without touching white or black: below 1 less area gets engraved, above it, more. KEY IDEA: “Brillo”, “Contraste” and “Gamma” mainly change WHICH AREAS land on each layer, and much less how much power each one burns with: in a photo, the middle layers hardly change their %. To burn harder or softer, use “Potencia claro” and “Potencia oscuro”, and check the result in “Potencia de cada capa”. TIP: In a photo, “Brillo”, “Contraste” and “Gamma” change the tones INSIDE the silhouette, not the silhouette: what is drawing and what is background is decided with the photo as it came, so moving them does not make the whole image jump to being drawing halfway along the slider. - “Umbral” (Threshold) shifts all the boundaries between layers at once. Raise it and more grays count as dark: more area gets engraved, but the % of the layers usually GOES DOWN, because each one picks up lighter grays. Lower it and the opposite happens. If you lower it so much that nothing is left to engrave, we warn you; each slider always moves the drawing in the same direction. TIP: If you get lost, reset everything to its default: with all six at their defaults the result is exactly the same as if the section did not exist. Cutting: so the piece does not fall apart ----------------------------------------- When cutting, four more options appear, and they are the ones that decide whether you get one piece or a pile of little bits. - “Unir piezas” (Join pieces) —on by default— looks for where the pieces are closest to each other and joins them with minimal bridges. The holes in letters, like the one in the “A”, get cut just the same. - “Ancho de unión” (Bridge width) is the thickness of those bridges, as a percentage of the height of the piece they hold. Raise it if the piece breaks there when you pop it out. - “Barra base” (Base bar) puts a straight bar under everything and hangs from it whatever has nothing to hold on to. It is what turns a loose name into a one-piece keychain. - “Sólo contorno” (Outline only) cuts only the outer edge: it does not open the inner holes. WARNING: The layer's cutting parameters —power, speed and passes— are set by you, as in any cut. Vectorize draws where, not how hard. When NOT to use it ------------------ For a real photograph —a face, a landscape— vectorizing is not the way: use the image as it is with its dithering, which is what knows how to do gradients. Vectorize shines with logos, silhouettes, lettering and drawings with few tones. 10. THE PERSONALIZER: ONE DESIGN, MANY PIECES ============================================= Forty keychains with forty different names, without copying the design forty times by hand. It works just as well for plaques, cards, earrings and ornaments. How to use it ------------- 1. Draw ONE piece. Where the name goes, do not write anything yet. 2. Select all of it —Ctrl+A takes everything on visible layers— and tap the Personalizador button. 3. Tap the title of the “{etiqueta1}” column. The placeholder appears BELOW your design, one centimeter away and in the typeface you are using, and it is left selected on its own. Drag it to where you want the name to appear. 4. Paste the list of names into that column, one per row. 5. Tap “Crear N piezas” (Create N pieces). Just like in the material test, the “Reemplazar todo el lienzo” checkbox comes TURNED ON and leaves the canvas with only the batch. Turn it off so the copies are added to what is already there. Ctrl+Z undoes either one. You can use up to three placeholders —{etiqueta1}, {etiqueta2} and {etiqueta3}— with one column each: name, position and date, for example. Each one appears one centimeter below the previous one, at the same size, so they never overlap and you can grab them one at a time. They appear outside the drawing on purpose: on top of it, the click to move them ends up selecting the shape underneath. And they start out somewhat smaller than the width of the piece, which is more comfortable for placing them. WARNING: A label you leave undragged gets engraved WHERE IT IS, that is, below each piece. It is a starting position, not the final spot. The data -------- Write one per row, or paste a whole column from Excel or a CSV. Accents and the letter ñ fix themselves: a CSV exported from Excel in Spanish arrives in the old Windows encoding, and without that fix diamonds would come out in José, Muñoz or Concepción. Each name stays WHERE you put the placeholder. What “Alineación del nombre sobre la marca” (Name alignment on the mark) decides is which edge of that mark stays still when the name is longer or shorter than it: “Empieza donde empieza la marca” (Starts where the mark starts), “Centrado sobre la marca” (Centered on the mark) or “Termina donde termina la marca” (Ends where the mark ends). That way “Ana” and “José Manuel” line up with each other on the point you chose. The SIZE of the name comes from the body of the mark you placed, so if you want them bigger, enlarge the mark and they all follow it. A name that does not fit across gets smaller; one that would stick out of the piece slides inward instead of shrinking, so it does not end up microscopic. The three are placed in order —first the drawing, then {etiqueta1}, then 2 and then 3— and each one avoids what is already placed. That is why the second one gives way to the first and not the other way around: if they were placed at the same time, two long names would both shrink and neither would be readable. WARNING: If the placeholder is so close to an edge that shrinking does not fix it, the name keeps its size instead of disappearing. Move it yourself in that case: a microscopic name is worse than one that grazes the edge. The layout ---------- - “Ancho del material” (Material width) and “Alto del material” (Material height) are the piece of stock you are going to use, not the whole bed. The button next to them sets them to the full bed. - “Separación” (Spacing) is the gap between pieces; “Margen” (Margin) is what is left free at the edge of the material. - “Separación mínima” (Minimum spacing) is the distance required of each name from the drawing, from the other names and from the fixed texts and images the piece has. If a name ends up closer, it shrinks by itself until it respects it. It is measured against the OUTLINE of what is there, not against its bounding box: on a hollow keychain, a name can go through the hole without it counting as a collision. At the bottom it tells you how many pieces fit and how many are left out. The piece is NOT rotated even if rotating it would fit more: forty crooked pieces are not worth the material you save. The window does not get in your way ----------------------------------- You can keep working in the editor with the Personalizer open, and drag it by its bar to wherever it does not bother you. At the bottom it has three buttons: - “Crear” (Create) generates the batch and LEAVES the window open, so you can look at it, correct a margin and generate again. - “Cerrar” (Close) closes the window and leaves everything as it is. - “Cancelar” undoes the batch you just created and closes. It is disabled if you already did something else afterwards: in that case, undoing would take that away instead of the batch. TIP: Give a batch a name and it is saved as a recipe, with its measurements and its layout. Next time you choose it and only change the list. 11. FILES: SAVING, IMPORTING AND EXPORTING ========================================== [Diagram: What you can bring in and take out — https://rapilaser.com/en/guide/img/10-formatos.en.svg] Where your projects live ------------------------ Wherever you choose. The “Archivo” (File) menu has “Nuevo” (New), “Abrir…” (Open…), “Guardar” (Save) and “Guardar como…” (Save as…), and a dot next to the name tells you there are unsaved changes. “Guardar como…” asks for the DESTINATION, and there are three: - “En la memoria de este navegador” (In this browser's memory) is the usual one and comes selected: the project appears in “Abrir…”, stays on THIS computer and in THIS browser, and does not travel to another computer. - “En este equipo, como archivo .rpl” (On this computer, as an .rpl file) lets you choose the folder and saves a real file, which you can back up, copy to a USB stick or send by email. If your browser does not know how to ask for a folder, it falls back to a normal download. - “En la nube” (In the cloud) is grayed out, with “Próximamente” (Coming soon). There are no accounts yet. There is also an automatic draft: if you close the tab without saving, when you come back you will see “Trabajo recuperado” (Work recovered). WARNING: “Eliminar” (Delete) in the project list is IMMEDIATE and irreversible, and it does not ask for confirmation. Ctrl+Z does not bring it back: undo is for the drawing, not for the storage. WARNING: If you use incognito mode, or if you clear your browsing data, your projects go with them. When we detect that storage is not durable we warn you with an amber band. Export to .rpl anything you do not want to lose. Taking a project with you ------------------------- “RPL ↑”, in the formats bar, creates a file with EVERYTHING inside: the drawing, the images and your own fonts. It is the format for backing up, for taking it to another computer or for passing it to someone. “RPL ↓” brings it back, and if you have unsaved changes it asks you before overwriting them. TIP: The “Archivo” menu is your PROJECT —New, Open, Save, Save as— and the formats bar is the FILES, what you carry from one computer to another. The two used to be mixed together in the menu. WARNING: There is no cloud, no account and no syncing. A project saved on the laptop does not appear on the phone: the bridge is exporting and importing. The formats bar --------------- The row with pairs of arrows is ABOVE the drawing tools, next to the “Archivo” menu and the “Descargar G-code” (Download G-code) and “Enviar a Máquina” buttons. The down arrow IMPORTS and the up arrow EXPORTS. There are five rows: SVG, LBRN2, JPG, GC and RPL. - “SVG ↓” brings in a vector drawing from any program. It ADDS to what you already have, and it also brings its TEXTS as real text —editable, not as loose paths—. What is imported arrives grouped, and if the file uses several colors each one lands on its own layer, so you can give each color its power and its speed. - “LBRN2 ↓” brings in a LightBurn project with its layers. It has no export arrow and it is not going to have one: LightBurn's format is closed and cannot be written. - “JPG ↓” places an image. It ADDS to what you already have. - “GC ↓” brings in ready-made G-code as editable paths, grouped into layers by power and speed. - “RPL ↓” opens one of your projects from a file. What gets ADDED comes in shifted a little relative to what was already there, so you can tell it came in: without that, two imports in a row would fall exactly on top of each other and it would look as if the second one never arrived. WARNING: “LBRN2 ↓” REPLACES your whole canvas WITHOUT asking. Only “GC ↓” asks first (“¿Reemplazar tu diseño?”, Replace your design?). If it catches you by surprise, Ctrl+Z undoes it: the whole import counts as a single step. WARNING: Everything you import from another tool brings PARAMETERS FROM ANOTHER MACHINE. You will see a notice asking you to review the power and speed of each layer before running. Pay attention to it: a speed from another machine can ruin the piece or start a fire. WARNING: The G-code importer has two known limits. A file with several passes arrives with the geometry duplicated, and a fill comes back turned into loose lines. If the file is a photo engraving, do not open it in the Editor: load it directly in Máquina, which does handle it. For exporting there are four arrows. “GC ↑” gives you the G-code. “SVG ↑” comes out in REAL MILLIMETERS —a 100 mm piece measures 100 mm when you open it in Inkscape or in Illustrator—, with one layer for each of your layers, the text as text and the photos inside the file. “RPL ↑” saves the complete project. To LightBurn you cannot, and you will not be able to. - “JPG ↑” downloads an IMAGE of your design just as it is going to be engraved: at real size, at 300 dots per inch, on white and with each layer in its color —the ones from a vectorized image, in the gray of their tone—. It is useful for showing a customer how it is going to look before burning anything. The file comes out in PNG format, which does not blur the edges. WARNING: That image is a PHOTO of the design, not the design: it cannot be opened again in RapiLaser to edit it. That is what “RPL ↑” is for. WARNING: The SVG is a drawing, not a project: it does not carry the power, the speed or the passes of your layers. To back up your work with everything inside, use “RPL ↑”. Getting the G-code out ---------------------- “Descargar G-code” gives you the file to use wherever you want, with the extension you choose. But to engrave from RapiLaser you do not need it: “Enviar a Máquina” generates it and loads it directly. While the job runs you will see two times together: “Falta” (Remaining), which is what the program calculates is left, and “Lleva” (Elapsed), a stopwatch of the real time since it started. The stopwatch does not guess anything: it counts, and it keeps counting even if the machine gets stuck. Pauses are not added to it. “Enviar a Máquina” RESPECTS THE SELECTION: with nothing selected it sends the complete design, and with an active selection it sends only that. It is useful for engraving in parts — first the outline, then the fill, or repeating a piece that did not come out right. The button tells you before you touch it: when it is going to send only part, it reads “Enviar N seleccionado(s)” (Send N selected) instead of “Enviar a Máquina”. WARNING: “Descargar G-code” does NOT respect the selection: it always exports the whole design. Downloads go wherever your browser saves downloads. The only one that lets you choose a folder is “Guardar como… → En este equipo”, and only if your browser knows how to ask for it. Everything that gets downloaded carries the name of your project and the DATE: “placa-2026-09-08.svg”. It is so that your downloads folder stays readable: with three exports of the same design on the same afternoon, “placa (1)” and “placa (2)” do not say which is which. This very guide downloads as “RapiLaser-User-Guide-v4.24.0-2026-09-19.pdf”. 12. FROM DESIGN TO MACHINE ========================== When the design is ready, “Enviar a Máquina” generates the file and takes you to the other screen with the job already loaded. While it works you will see “Generando…” (Generating…). Before sending it we check the real path —the one that includes the text turned into paths, the photos and the acceleration margins— against your machine's area. If something goes outside it, “El trabajo se sale del área de trabajo” (The job goes outside the work area) appears and you decide: “Enviar de todos modos” (Send anyway) is there for when you do it on purpose. What you see on the Máquina screen ---------------------------------- - The preview of the complete path, with “+”, “−” and “Ajustar” (Fit). - “Líneas” (Lines) and “Tamaño del trabajo” (Job size). - “Duración estimada” (Estimated duration), with the breakdown “En qué se va el tiempo” (Where the time goes): burning, travel moves, speeding up and slowing down, and waiting on the cable. It includes a “Consejo del cuello de botella” (Bottleneck tip) that tells you what to change so it takes less time. You can also load a file directly here with “Cargar archivo” (Load file), or by dragging it onto the area. WARNING: If you change the design after sending it, we warn you: what would run is what you loaded, not what you see now in the Editor. The “Láser activado” checkbox ----------------------------- When unticked, the job runs with the laser off: the machine goes through the whole movement without burning anything. It is the safest way to check that the path is the one you expect before spending material. 13. LINING UP THE JOB WITH THE MATERIAL ======================================= This is the part that trips people up most at the beginning, and the one that wastes the most material when it goes wrong. The idea is simple: the machine does not know where you put your board. You have to tell it. [Diagram: “Origen aquí”: you tell the machine where it stands on your design — https://rapilaser.com/en/guide/img/02-origen-aqui.en.svg] Jog: moving the head manually ----------------------------- In the “Control” panel you have the arrows and the “Paso (mm)” (Step, mm) selector with 0.1, 1, 10, 50 and “Continuo” (Continuous). With “Continuo”, you hold down the arrow and the head moves for as long as you hold it. WARNING: The “⌂” button (“Ir al origen de trabajo”, Go to work origin) MOVES the machine for real, in a straight line and at rapid speed. If there is a clamp, a ruler or the piece in the way, it crashes. It is not a “start over” button. Jog is X and Y only. The height of the head —the focus— is mechanical and is not adjusted from the application: RapiLaser never sends the head up or down. If your machine focuses by itself with its own button, what we do is remind you before starting. It is explained further on, in “Before starting a job: air and focus”. The two ways to set the origin ------------------------------ “Origen 0,0” says: “where the head is now is the bottom-left corner of my drawing”. It is on both screens. “Origen aquí” says something different and more powerful: “the head is now at THIS point of my drawing”. It lives only in the EDITOR, because you need to see the design: when you tap it a crosshair is armed, and you click on the point that corresponds. WARNING: Both are the same command with different coordinates, so THEY OVERWRITE EACH OTHER: setting one erases the effect of the other. And there is no undo — if you make a mistake, the way out is to set it again correctly. WARNING: “Origen 0,0” is applied immediately and without confirmation. If you tap it with the head in the wrong place, the whole job gets engraved shifted. The workflow that really works ------------------------------ 1. Put the material in the machine. 2. With the jog arrows, bring the head to a corner or a visible mark on the material. 3. In the Editor, tap “Origen aquí” and click on the point of the drawing you want to land exactly there. 4. The orange cursor jumps to that point and “Origen fijado.” (Origin set.) appears: that is your confirmation. 5. Tap “Encuadrar (sin láser)” (Frame, without laser) and watch the head trace the outline over the real material. TIP: Framing is your last chance to notice that something is crooked, and it costs twenty seconds. Always use it. WARNING: With the crosshair armed, a click OUTSIDE the work area sets nothing: the origin stays as it was. And it does warn you — a red notice appears saying that point is outside the area and that the origin was not set, and the rejected-command tone sounds. The crosshair stays armed: there is no need to tap the button again, just mark again inside the bed (the area with the grid). When the button is gray ----------------------- With no machine connected, the origin buttons are not gray: they are not there. They appear when you connect. Once connected, they turn gray while the machine is not idle, or while a job is running. In the EDITOR, if you leave the pointer over the button, the tooltip says why: “Espera a que la máquina esté en reposo.” (Wait until the machine is idle.) or “No se puede mientras hay un trabajo en curso.” (Not possible while a job is running.) In MÁQUINA there is no such text: the button just looks gray. If the machine is in ALARM, the Editor's tooltip sends you to the Máquina screen; there, in the red alarm box, is the “Desbloquear ($X)” (Unlock) button. Homing and the dotted cursor ---------------------------- Homing is the maneuver in which the machine goes looking for its limit switches to know exactly where it is. There is NO button for it: you type “$H” in the console. That is deliberate — homing moves the head at full speed to the corner, sometimes crossing the whole bed, and we do not want it to fire off from an accidental click. WARNING: Before sending “$H”, clear away anything that could get in the way of the travel. If you have not homed, the ring of the orange cursor is drawn dotted. It is an honest reminder: the position is still correct relative to the origin YOU set, but the bed coordinates are not real, because the machine has no way of knowing where it is if nobody told it. 14. TWO AIDS SO YOU DO NOT ENGRAVE BLIND ======================================== [Diagram: Two aids so you do not engrave blind — https://rapilaser.com/en/guide/img/11-apuntador-seguidor.en.svg] The Apuntador (Pointer) ----------------------- It turns the laser on at minimum, continuous power, so you can see exactly where it points on your material. It is useful for lining up when the reference is on the object itself. - It only works with the machine connected and idle. If the checkbox is gray, the text next to it says why. - It switches itself off after a minute. Tick it again if you need more time. - It also switches off when a job starts, when the connection is lost, when the machine goes into alarm and when you close the tab. WARNING: The Apuntador TURNS THE LASER ON FOR REAL, and it does NOT depend on the “Láser activado” checkbox. Glasses on. If the application stops responding with the beam on, switch the machine off with its power switch. The Seguidor (Follower) ----------------------- It draws an orange crosshair that follows the head over your own design, in real time, while it engraves. You can see where it is without going near the machine. The position lags a fraction of a second behind reality, and that is on purpose: we would rather show you where the head was than guess where it will be. 15. BEFORE STARTING A JOB: AIR AND FOCUS ======================================== In the “Control” panel of the Máquina screen, below the Apuntador, there are two more things: the “Probar aire” button and the “Esta máquina tiene autoenfoque” (This machine has autofocus) checkbox. Both are for the same thing: checking something the program cannot find out by itself. Either you tell it, or you have to hear it yourself. “Probar aire” (Test air) ------------------------ It turns the air pump on for four seconds and turns it off again. While it blows, the button reads “Soplando… 4 s” (Blowing… 4 s). It is for finding out whether your pump is connected to the machine's board and obeys it. There is no other way to know: the machine says yes to the air command even if nothing is plugged into that connector. That is why when it finishes we ask you “¿Lo oíste soplar?” (Did you hear it blow?) — you are the one who decides. - If your machine REJECTS the command, we tell you: that firmware does not understand it and you will have to turn the air on by hand. - If it turned on but could NOT be turned off, we tell you that too. Go and check the pump: it may have been left blowing. - The button only works with the machine connected, idle and with no job running. If it is gray, the reason appears underneath. TIP: Do it BEFORE a material test that uses air as one of its two axes. If the pump does not obey, the “with air” and “without air” columns come out identical and you would end up blaming your wood. “Esta máquina tiene autoenfoque” (This machine has autofocus) ------------------------------------------------------------- Tick it if your machine focuses by itself with its own button. RapiLaser remembers your answer for that machine: you answer once and that is it. If you have two machines and only one of them focuses, each one keeps its own. When ticked, every time you tap “Iniciar” (Start) the “Antes de arrancar” (Before starting) window appears with the question “¿Ya enfocaste la máquina?” (Have you focused the machine?) and two options: “Ya está enfocada, arranca” (It is focused, start) and “Espera, voy a enfocar” (Wait, I am going to focus). The same thing appears whether you tapped “Iniciar” from the Editor or from the Máquina screen. WARNING: RapiLaser does NOT focus your machine or send it any command to do so. The checkbox only serves to remind you. There is no standard autofocus command —each manufacturer solves it in its own way and without documenting it— and lowering the head blindly onto your material is not worth the risk. Focus with your machine's button and then confirm. TIP: If your machine does not focus by itself, leave it unticked: that way you do not get a question that is of no use to you. A warning that is always unnecessary ends up as “accept without reading”, and then it no longer warns about anything. 16. ENGRAVING ============= Start, pause, resume -------------------- “Iniciar”, “Pausar” (Pause) and “Reanudar” (Resume) are in the top bar, and you also have them from the Editor, so you can run the engraving without leaving the design and while watching the cursor move. Pausing stops the movement safely and continues where it left off. On a phone, those buttons only appear when a job is loaded. The STOP -------- WARNING: The STOP is always visible and always active, on every screen, even if something goes wrong in the application. It is the only real emergency stop. Remember: if you unplug the cable instead, the machine keeps running what it already has stored. The top bar stays fixed even when you scroll the page, and nothing is put on top of it: not the notices, not the menus, not the windows. When a window that asks for an answer appears —“¿Ya enfocaste la máquina?”, the unsaved-changes one or “Guardar como”— only that window and the STOP respond; the rest of the screen, bar included, waits for you to answer it. With the red connection-lost window, “Conectar” responds too, because connecting again is one of its steps. If the connection is lost in the middle of a job ------------------------------------------------ We never resume a job blindly: the machine may have kept moving and we no longer know where it ended up. You will see a red window that cannot be ignored, with the steps to follow: do “Reset (0x18)”, check where the head ended up, and tap “Confirmar reposicionamiento” (Confirm repositioning) before you can run again. While it works -------------- The browser tab shows the percentage, so you can go to another window. We also keep the screen from turning off while a job is running. WARNING: The RapiLaser tab has to stay VISIBLE for the whole engraving. If you hide it, switch applications or the screen turns off, the browser slows down the sending and the engraving stops halfway through the piece. On a phone this is especially important. 17. ROTARY MODE: ENGRAVING TUMBLERS AND CUPS ============================================ A rotary accessory lets you engrave round objects: tumblers, cups, pens, pencils. RapiLaser supports it with friction roller rotaries, which are the most common and the cheapest. [Diagram: How the rotary is connected — https://rapilaser.com/en/guide/img/03-rodillo-montaje.en.svg] How it is connected ------------------- With the machine OFF, unplug the Y-axis motor cable and plug the rotary in there. Nothing else. The X axis still moves the head along the object, and the Y axis no longer moves anything across: now it spins the tumbler. Your machine does not notice the change — it still believes the Y axis moves in straight millimeters. That is why you have to calibrate once. WARNING: This first release is for ROLLERS. There is no chuck mode and no support for tapered objects like cups that narrow. Calibrating: three ways, and only one asks you to measure --------------------------------------------------------- [Diagram: Calibrating the rotary: one measurement, one time — https://rapilaser.com/en/guide/img/04-rodillo-calibracion.en.svg] On the Máquina screen, the “Rodillo” (Rotary) panel offers you three ways to calibrate. Choose the one that is easiest for you; all three lead to the same number. - PICK YOURS FROM THE LIST. If your rotary is in the catalog, you select it and you are done. The list starts short and grows with what users measure; each entry says where its number came from. - COPY IT FROM LIGHTBURN. If you already use that rotary in LightBurn, its rotary window has “MM Per Rotation” and “Roller Diameter”. With those two it is calibrated without measuring anything. - MEASURE IT. It is the way that always works, and the one explained below. WARNING: The two LightBurn numbers have to be the ones for THIS machine. The first one depends on the steps per millimeter of the device where you set up LightBurn, so copying them from another computer gives the wrong size. KEY IDEA: What gets saved is a constant of the ROTARY, not a number tied to this device. That is why one calibration works on all your machines: each one contributes its own figure when it connects. To measure it: 1. Connect the machine and go to the Máquina screen. The “Rodillo” panel will appear. 2. Tap “Calibrar” (Calibrate) and choose “El mío no está en la lista” (Mine is not on the list). 3. Put the object on the rollers and stick a strip of tape ALONG the rotation —following the turn, not from side to side— more than 150 mm long. Mark on it the point that is right under the laser. 4. Tap “Girar 150 mm” (Rotate 150 mm). The object turns with the laser off. 5. Mark on the tape the new point that ended up under the laser, measure on the tape the distance between the two marks and type that number. Tap “Guardar”. The tape has to go along the rotation and be longer than the travel for a practical reason: that way both marks land on it and the distance is measured with a straight ruler, without fighting the curve of the object. That is it. That number is saved for THAT machine and it is not asked for again; next to the checkbox you will see “Calibrado:” (Calibrated:) with the value. If you connect another machine, it will have its own. TIP: While it turns, watch whether the object slips on the rollers. If it slips, no calculation is going to fix it: adjust the support before going on. We do not ask you for the diameter of your rollers, or their gears, or any internal setting. That single measurement settles all of them at once. The object's diameter does not change the size ---------------------------------------------- [Diagram: Why the object’s diameter does NOT change the engraving’s size — https://rapilaser.com/en/guide/img/05-rodillo-diametro.en.svg] This confuses a lot of people, even veteran users of other programs, so it is worth understanding: with friction rollers, the object's diameter does NOT affect the size of what you engrave. The roller drags the surface of the object by contact. One millimeter of roller is one millimeter of surface, whatever the size of the tumbler. A thin cup turns more times and a thick one fewer, but the drawing comes out the same on both. It has been checked with a machine: the same 30 × 30 mm square on three very different diameters, without recalibrating, came out identical. So what is the “Diámetro Ø del objeto:” (Object diameter Ø) field for? Only for calculating how long the full turn is —you will see “· la vuelta mide N mm” (· the turn measures N mm)— and warning you if your design would overlap itself going around. It is optional. It is typed in two places, and it is the same figure. One: the “Diámetro Ø del objeto:” field of the “Rodillo” panel on the Máquina screen, which appears as soon as that machine is calibrated; there you can change it or clear it whenever you want. Two: the window that appears by itself the first time you turn the mode on. That window is titled “¿Qué tan grueso es el objeto?” (How thick is the object?), has the “Diámetro Ø” field and keeps showing you “La vuelta mide N mm.” (The turn measures N mm.) as you type. Accept it with “Listo” or skip it with “Ahora no” (Not now). It only appears when you TURN ON the mode and only if there is no diameter set yet: once you have set it, it does not bother you again even if you turn it off and on. That window accepts diameters from 5 to 300 mm. Outside that range, “Listo” stays gray. What we do and what we do not ----------------------------- KEY IDEA: RapiLaser NEVER changes your machine's settings to correct the rotary's scale. The correction is applied to the file we send. It is a deliberate decision. Other programs make you change internal settings on the machine, and the problem shows up days later: you go back to a flat job, everything comes out the wrong size and extremely slow, and you do not understand why. Here that cannot happen, because your machine stays untouched. There is one exception, and we always ask you for it with a confirmation: if your machine has its software limits on, the axis that spins endlessly would exceed them and reject the job halfway through. We offer you “Apagar los límites mientras dure el trabajo” (Turn the limits off for the length of the job), and we turn them back on when it finishes. Details of the mode ------------------- - The mode switch is on both screens, with the machine connected, but it does not look the same: in Máquina it is the “Rodillo” checkbox, at the start of its panel; in the Editor it is the icon of the round object on its two rollers, with the rotation arrow, in the top bar. - It cannot be turned on until you have calibrated that machine. In Máquina the checkbox stays gray; in the Editor the icon looks dimmed and, if you tap it, a rejection sounds and it tells you where to go. - While it is active you will see a permanent notice in amber. - The mode is not saved with the project: if you open an old design, you are never going to inherit a rotary mode you did not ask for. - With the rotary on, homing is blocked and we explain why. WARNING: REMEMBER TO TURN IT OFF before engraving flat again. The mode lasts for the whole browser session; if you leave it on, your next flat job will come out with the wrong height. WARNING: Never send “$H” with the rotary on: the Y-axis limit switch can no longer be pressed, so the object would spin non-stop until the machine goes into alarm. That is why we block it. The canvas draws the unrolled cylinder -------------------------------------- With the mode on and the diameter set —you typed it in the window that appears when you turn the mode on, or in the “Rodillo” panel of the Máquina screen— the canvas stops measuring the bed: the height becomes the TURN of the cylinder. Two dotted lines appear —the seam— that mark where the rotation closes; they are the same place on the object, so whatever touches one touches the other. The turn starts where you set the origin, not at the design's zero: if you set the origin halfway along the piece, the seam moves with you. The diameter is optional and does NOT change the size of the engraving. Without it everything works the same, but the turn is not drawn and we cannot warn you about overlaps. TIP: In rotary mode the axis that spins has no edges: you can place the design wherever you want heightwise and it will just make more turns. The only thing that ruins a job is the design being TALLER than the turn, because then it gets engraved on top of what was already engraved. We do warn you about that when you send it, and tell you by how many millimeters it is too tall. 18. WHEN SOMETHING GOES WRONG ============================= The machine does not show up when connecting -------------------------------------------- - Turn the machine on BEFORE connecting, and if it was already connected, try again. - Try ANOTHER cable. Charge-only ones are the most frequent cause, and they give no error. - On Windows, the CH340 driver may be missing. - Close any other program that might have the port busy. Only one at a time can talk to the machine. TIP: If you are on the public Diagnostic page and you see no error message, it is not that there is none: that page does not show the console. Go into the application, go to the MÁQUINA screen and look at its console, which is the one that shows what the machine answers. It says the machine engine could not be loaded ---------------------------------------------- The engine is the piece of the program that talks to the machine, and the browser downloads it separately. If that download fails, “Conectar” cannot work: reload the page with Ctrl+F5, which downloads everything again. If it stays the same, let us know — the published version came out incomplete and that is something we fix, not you. WARNING: If the notice appears with a job in progress, do NOT reload the page. The machine can keep moving with what it already has stored, even if the job looks finished. Use the STOP; if it does not respond, TURN THE MACHINE OFF. It says “There is a new version of RapiLaser” --------------------------------------------- When we publish a new version, the application notices it by itself —when you open it, every 15 minutes and when you come back to its tab— and tells you with a notice at the bottom that does not stop you from working, showing the version you are using and the one that is already published. “Update now” reloads the page with the new version; “Not now” closes it, and it does not appear again until we publish another one. - It NEVER appears while the machine might be moving: it waits until it is still. Reloading in the middle of a task would cut the connection to the machine. - If you have unsaved changes, before reloading it asks you: “You have unsaved changes”. RapiLaser saves a draft in that browser and restores it when you come back; to play it safe, tap “Cancel” and save your project first. - If a tool —Vectorize, the dithering of a photo or generating the file for the machine— does not manage to load and there is a new version published, the notice appears again even if you had closed it: it is almost always that, and updating fixes it. TIP: If the button does not work, on a computer hold down Ctrl, Shift and R: the notice reminds you with a drawing of the three keys. It says “Bloqueada por seguridad” --------------------------------- It is an alarm on the machine (“Bloqueada por seguridad”, Locked for safety): it will not accept any movement until you unlock it. Use the “Desbloquear ($X)” button, or home it with “$H” if you also want to get the reference back. It usually happens when the head bumped into something or when the machine was switched on in an odd state. The engraving comes out the wrong size -------------------------------------- - If it is flat and the height is wrong, check that you do not have Rodillo mode on. - If it is on the rotary, recalibrate, measuring more carefully and over the curve. - If you ever edited your machine's internal settings following an accessory's manual, put them back to their original value: we do not need them and they would add up with our correction. The engraving comes out moved or shifted ---------------------------------------- - Check that nothing is in the way of the travel and that the material has not moved. - Use “Encuadrar (sin láser)” before engraving. - Check that you did not tap “Origen 0,0” by mistake with the head somewhere else. The “Enviar a Máquina” button is gray ------------------------------------- - Is there anything drawn? Is the layer visible? A hidden layer does not count. - Is a drawing tool on? With a tool active the canvas places shapes instead of selecting. Everything is very slow ----------------------- A photo engraving is limited by the speed of the cable, not by the mechanics. Raise the layer's “Intervalo”: from 0.1 to 0.2 mm is half the time. The “Consejo del cuello de botella” on the Máquina screen tells you what is worth changing. I lost my projects ------------------ Projects live in the browser on that computer. If you cleared your browsing data or used incognito mode, they are gone. For the future, export to .rpl whatever matters to you. 19. YOUR ACCESS CODE ==================== You get into RapiLaser with a code in the form RAPI-XXXX-XXXX. It is yours, and it works on ALL your devices: the laptop where you design and the phone you engrave from. - Only the Editor and the Máquina screen ask for it. The Diagnostic is public on purpose: anyone can check whether their phone and their browser talk to their machine, without asking anybody for anything. - Once you are in, the pass renews itself as long as you keep using the application. It is not going to throw you out in the middle of a job. - If your license expires, the application tells you in exactly those words —“Your license expired”— and not with an “invalid code”. Your projects are still saved in that browser, waiting for you. WARNING: The code is personal. Sharing it does not go unnoticed: the server notices when the same code comes in from devices that do not look alike. How to get one -------------- There is a FREE trial license for 30 days, with no card and no commitment. You request it by filling in a short form on rapilaser.com, or at app.rapilaser.com/solicitud. The form asks about your machine, what device you are going to control it with and what you want to use it for. It is not red tape: with that we know whether RapiLaser is really going to work for you before you waste an afternoon testing, and we can help you with your particular case. The code reaches you by email, at the address you put in the form, with the date it is valid until and the link to this guide. TIP: Before filling it in, open the Diagnostic. It is free, it does not ask for a code and in ten seconds it tells you whether your browser and your device can talk to your machine — which is the question that really matters. Buying and renewing ------------------- At app.rapilaser.com/comprar you will find the two plans, monthly and yearly, with their prices and with VAT already included: what you see is what gets charged. The yearly plan is considerably cheaper than twelve separate months, and right there it tells you how much you save. Payment is made on Mercado Pago's screen, not here: your card never goes through RapiLaser at any moment. When you finish you receive your code and you can get in right away. If you already have a license, buying RENEWS it: the days are ADDED to the ones you had left. Renewing early does not cost you the days you had already paid for. And if you would rather deal with a person, write to us at rapilaser@rapilaser.com or on WhatsApp. Hearing about what is new ------------------------- RapiLaser has a WhatsApp channel where the news is posted. It is broadcast-only: only we post, nobody sees anybody's phone number, and you can leave whenever you want. The link is on rapilaser.com. 20. SUPPORT =========== Write to us and we will do our best to answer you. Email: rapilaser@rapilaser.com From the application, “Problem or suggestion?” (in the top bar, between the Guide's “PDF” and “Sign out”, and also on the Diagnostic page) lets you report a problem or request an improvement without leaving the application, in Spanish or in English, and confirms by email that we received it. Without a license, or from the Diagnostic, it opens that email for you already addressed and with the questions that help us understand you: “Report a problem” asks what you were doing, what you expected and what happened; “Request an improvement”, what you want to achieve. WhatsApp channel with the news: the link is on rapilaser.com Website: rapilaser.com How to ask for help so it goes quickly -------------------------------------- If something fails, these details save a lot of back and forth: - Which version of RapiLaser you are using. It appears in the top bar, next to the logo: it is the small number that starts with “v”. - Make and model of your machine. - Which device and browser (for example: Windows with Chrome, or an Android phone over an OTG cable). - What you expected to happen and what happened. - If something came out the wrong size, the measurement you expected and the one that came out. TIP: The Diagnostic page is public and does not need a code: if you have compatibility doubts, open it and tell us what it says, especially the “Chosen medium” row. 21. LEGAL NOTICES ================= Copyright --------- D.R. © 2026 Manuel Del Río González. All rights reserved. RapiLaser is a computer program protected by the Federal Copyright Law of the United Mexican States (Ley Federal del Derecho de Autor) and by the applicable international treaties. Protection arises with the creation of the work and does not depend on any registration. Without prior written authorization from the rights holder, the following are prohibited: total or partial reproduction, distribution, public communication, translation, adaptation, decompilation, reverse engineering and any modification of the program or of its source code. This guide is part of the work and is protected on the same terms. Trademark --------- RapiLaser™ is a trademark with a registration application pending before the IMPI (Mexico). The other trademarks mentioned in this guide —among others LightBurn, Atomstack, Sculpfun, Ortur, Creality, LaserPecker, xTool, Chrome, Edge, Android and Windows— belong to their respective owners and are cited only to identify compatibility. Mentioning them does not imply sponsorship, affiliation or endorsement by any of the parties. What is yours ------------- Your designs are yours. RapiLaser claims no rights over the files you create with it: not over your .rpl projects, not over the images you place, and not over the G-code the application generates. You can use them, sell them or modify them without asking us for permission. The G-code the application produces carries a comment line that identifies the program that generated it. It is a mark of where the file came from, not a claim of rights, and you can delete it. Limitation of liability ----------------------- WARNING: A diode laser cuts, burns and can cause permanent blindness. Read this section even if you read no other. RapiLaser is provided “as is”, without warranty of any kind, express or implied, including those of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and absence of defects. Operating the laser machine is the sole responsibility of whoever uses it. It is mandatory to use adequate eye protection, not to leave the machine working unsupervised, to have ventilation and fire extinguishing means within reach, and to check the travel path before running any job. To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, the rights holder will not be liable for direct, indirect, incidental, special or consequential damages —including harm to persons, to the machine, to the material, loss of work or lost profits— arising from the use of, or the inability to use, the program. Using the program implies acceptance of these terms. Privacy ------- The complete privacy notice, with the data that is processed and how to exercise your ARCO rights (access, rectification, cancellation and opposition), is published at app.rapilaser.com/legal and is publicly accessible. The essentials: your designs, your images and your G-code do NOT leave your computer. They are saved in your browser and travel directly from it to your machine over the cable. Third-party software -------------------- RapiLaser incorporates open source components, each one under its own license, and their notices are reproduced in full at app.rapilaser.com/legal. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ RapiLaser™ User Guide v4.24.0 — September 19, 2026. D.R. © 2026 Manuel Del Río González. All rights reserved. RapiLaser™ is a trademark with a registration application pending before the IMPI (Mexico). Contact: rapilaser@rapilaser.com.