Best settingsto engrave on pine

LightBurn Software Questions
1

hi all
i just want to know if anyone can advise me on what they
found to be the best settings for you to engrave on pine wood
i got a 5w diod machine

thx

2

Different on literally every single machine, and even each piece of wood. Best way to get close is the built in material test. First one I do is “wide range”, so from 10% power amd speed to 95% in 10 steps. Then somewhere in that will be some “close enough” results with others either making no mark or burning waaay too much. Do another one in the range that looked acceptable with maybe 5 or 6 steps to dine tune and home in on the settings you like.

Tip, the material test has Min and Max settings for power and speed, those are more like Start and Stop. So I set mine with lower power / faster speeds at the Min setting and higher power / faster speeds at Max. That way it starts out low and works up. Once you see it burning too much, stop the test. No point on going any farther once you are making charcoal.

DO NOT walk away from it during the test. Small machines have no safety measures and pine burns easily. You can start a fire.
Ventilation: do it outdoor or as open air as you can. You do not need to be breathing the vapors.
Best of luck. Post pics.

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Just as a general rule when doing pictures you need to know your laser spot size, if its say 0.08x0.10, there is not much you can do about the 0.08 but the real trick is using the 0.10 to work out your LPI setting. 0.10 works out as 254LPI 1"=25.4mm 25.4 divided by 0.10 = 254. This will give you a pretty reasonable result. Power setting will depend on material, Baltic Birch on a 20W a power setting of around 30% is a good starting point. To Darken Pic increace LPI but you will also lose some detail, to Lighten Pic reduce LPI but you will start to washout pic while gaining some detail. Once you start to get comfortable with these setting you can start looking into the Dark Magic areas of playing with contrast and gamma settings.

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