So, with all my research going on about my CO² Laser I came across the mentioning of the need for them to be run like once a week in order to keep the Gas activated which might actually be an issue as I only bought mine for recreational purposes and I’m not recreating all the time
So anyway… In order to not just be cutting garbage for the sake of keeping the Tube alive I decided to make a little Project that would swat two flies with one hit - Keep the Tube alive and serve a purpose:
Anodized Business Cards!
And for the Job to be an easy setup I decided to make a JIG to hold two Cards that would then get flipped over into the opposing cavity for the operation to be done a second time to engrave each Cards rear - EzPz
Stupid as I am I went and fancied out on the JIG and did some unnecessary Markings on it like what it is for ( in case I forget until the next week ) and where to put the Hold Down Pegs using a CAD Graphic of the 3D Printed Pegs I designed but when it got burned, I noticed the Cardboard getting lighter instead of darker.
The light parts of the Image were still lighter than the darker parts, so it wasn’t as if the Image was inverted - It’s just the material, while Scan Engraved, was getting lighter unlike when it is Cut where it does indeed get darker.
Am I scanning the image to fast / with not enough power?
I don’t know if the result is directly related to your settings. Some materials naturally get lighter vs darker when engraved. Slate is a very common material where this is true although I’ve heard there are certain slates that behave differently.
If you explicitly want a darker engraving perhaps try defocusing so you can get the material to burn rather than ablate.
I’m only offering that as a potential solution since I’d think that cardboard should be burnable to a dark finish.
Other times you’d see this with paper would be in things like black cardstock. You could easily get a lighter outcome on the ablated portions of the material.
An intersting note, I puchased some slate from home depot that was 1’x2’. Never could get a mark on it with the CO2.
I tried the fiber on it and it didn’t do anything to speak of… I lowered the frequency and increased the q-pulse width. Same speed/power…
It seemed to give me some destruction, so I ran the Mayan calendar on it… It completed ok and I went to lunch. While lunching, the spouse and I heard a big pop … couldn’t figure out what it was…
… this is what it was… This is a foot tall and 2 wide from this side… Guess it got a tad warm…
It is strange that the same speed/power settings don’t seem to have as much effect as frequency and q-pulse width…
Got a couple slate coasters, from the reject pile and I’ll see what I can do with those… I don’t think Russ Sadler had very good results with slate and a fiber, if I remember correctly… So many adjustments and each has such a wide range.
Anodized Business Cards! 
) and where to put the Hold Down Pegs using a CAD Graphic of the 3D Printed Pegs I designed but when it got burned, I noticed the Cardboard getting lighter instead of darker.
