Thanks for the correction, good to know. The lens I have and used for this project is the HY-SL-1064-200-290.
Yep, though I’ve been doing lots of material tests to discover stable colors and I’ve found that the ambient temperature is not that important, except for the most finicky colors. I’ve used a heating pad to raise the temperatures of the samples e.g. +20 degrees and most colors where not affected. If the material is thin or if its a small piece and much more heat accumulates then you start seeing distortions. Since some of these colors are plasmonic, where not only the thickness of the oxide but also its nano structure/texture impacts it, initial surface texture is usually more important. Having an electron microscope would help playing with this.
I’ll share the settings of the best colors I’ve found so far in this forum someday soon.
When I looked at the chart, I figured it was an F290mm that you have. You can find on-line calculators for spot size and depth of field (dof) to help put your lenses to good use.
If I know which lens, specified by it’s focal length, I get a lot more information, than going backwards to find it… Nothing is written in stone, so to speak.
There are some markings that stay the same, no matter the viewing angle, some almost disappear when the angle is changed. I was told it was a characteristic of the oxide layer.. but I don’t know.
Most of the materials I can afford are thinner materials than you are using. Ambient temperature would matter more if there is more/less material in any dimension, I would think?
That would be great, however, I don’t think it’s in my pocket book range.
It is, but not only its thickness is important, its nano structure/texture plays a part too. Tbh I’ve yet to find colors that have a full 180 degree viewing angle, some are close but still don’t have the consistent viewing angles of simple paint.
Here are a couple of scientific papers related to plasmonics that have some pretty pictures to look at.
I would be very interested in your color settings. The one thing holding me back from switching to Lightburn for my galvo is being able to get colors. Your colors in this sample seem much more vivid than I am getting on polished 304 stainless. Having your settings would be a nice head start for me to switch. I already use Lightburn for my CO2 laser and love it.
I’ve attached my not too well organized material library, I usually rely on material test plates and doing lots of adjusting when engraving, so lots of ruined samples. This material library is for a 60W laser with a F290 200x200 lens.
I plan on posting some of the material test plates that have stable-ish/reproducible colors soon, those will probably be more helpful than my material library. Currently it mostly has bright but slow to engrave colors, as I haven’t populated it with all the colors I discovered.
Laser Everything has a bunch of free suggested settings for fiber machines. They use a 30W fiber and have conversion software for different fiber power level machines. I think it’s covered in this video..
It’s been a while since I did these conversions for my 60W machine, but I think this video shows how to convert.. It’s been over a couple of years.
Thank you very much. I tried opening your file with a couple of robust viewers, but I can’t. Do you have this in a more common format, like xml perhaps? Sorry for the inconvenience. I would be grateful to have them.
This material library is for a 60W laser with a F290 200x200 lens.
