Im having a lot of trouble trying to figure out color on this laser, I’ve spent the last couple hours trying to figure it out, and all I’m getting is a million and one shades of grey. I really need some help with this
I’m trying to engrave onto stainless
The material test wizard is your friend! I tend to pick a pulse width, (say 8ns), then at 50% power, run a test between 10khz - 1000 khz on one axis, and speed from ~300-3000mm/s on the other. That gives an indication on where over the spectrum of settings you should start to look further. Say you get a nice blue at 50% power/110khz/1000mm/s. I’d then run another test from 90-140khz and speed from 800-1200mm/s to dial it in, and then further test by varying the power range from 40-60%.
Focus is very important for consistency, but at this point you don’t have a starting point!
Alrighty, so I have colors now, but they are really faint, and could be mistaken for black unless looked at in the right light, is there a way to make them brighter, or more visible @fins
It takes a lot of work to get consistent colours. Most galvo users have a giant pile of test cards! There are 2 “types” of colours; primarily thin film, and primarily surface modification. The more you explore the colour space, the better handle you will get on it. Keep testing with different parameters.
I’m working on something in this space, but hardware is taking a while to arrive.
Here’s a thread you might find helpful.
How thick is the metal you’re using?
To mark (not engrave), requires you to heat up the metal to a certain temperature to create an oxidation or annealed area. Some of these marks will disappear at certain light angles, some will not.
Material type, thickness and even ambient temperatures can change what colors you get as all of these determine surface temperature.
I got very little changes until I started using q-pulse, but mostly interval to dial in the colors.
Metal sinks heat away, so thickness and ambient temperature can cause changes in the finished operation.
Using a 160mm lens, the spot size is near 25 microns, but they are using a interval of 3 microns.
Good luck
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