At the start of a line, there is a good burn on wood or cardboard, but after a millimeter or so, the line will fade until there is virtually no effect. Things like the vertical parts of letters look good, however the horizontal lines on “E” and “T” will be very light. I am scanning bidirectional so the ends of those horizontal lines are solid. The large mountain logo is basically just an outline with a fade out extending in from either end but it should be totally filled. I have tried various speed and power settings and this still persists. Here is a screen shot with the layer info for the logo and top two lines of text.
You’re likely going way too fast. Your controller doesn’t do variable power, so what’s happening is that as it speeds up for the straight bits, the amount of power being deposited on the wood is lower than on the sides, where it’s slow.
Increase the overscan amount (you might need 20% or more), lower the speed to 3000 (as a starting point) and increase to 90% power. Try that and see if it’s more consistent.
The ManaSE does have PWM power control. What do I need to do to enable it?
I tried the new settings and it did improve, but it is still darker at the edges and lighter in the center… noticeable on the Logo and on ‘E’. I was going to do a second burn, but after a normal stop at the end, I hit start again and it started shifted up about an inch or so…
PWM power control isn’t the same as velocity adjusted power - You’d need to be running GRBL 1.1f firmware with Laser Mode enabled ($32=1) to get it, otherwise, keep increasing the overscan amount until the burn evens out.
