Theoretically, it is very easy to collect the users’ individual settings from their respective machines and materials and create different material libraries and make them public.
However, my personal experience is that in most cases purchased or free material libraries are too inaccurate. It will always be a compromise or at best a starting point to start with settings made with a different machine and with different material.
An example, B/BB (Baltic birch plywood, with a given norm/quality), although it complies with a quality norm, is as different as one day to another. Moisture, temperature, age… are only some of the parameters that determine the process values with a laser machine. In addition, the laser, age of the laser source itself, mechanical properties of the machine and ambient conditions also have a very large influence on the result.
I don’t know how others handle it, but I do a small test for each new delivery of wood and for all new orders and note the difference to my starting values and own material library as a note. That’s my part of quality assurance.
Biggest gains in (my) way of doing it are optimal engravings/cuttings - each time with not too much (or too little) added energy to the material and thus the resulting nicer results. And I have full control over the state of my machines.
I have just been thru the same hurdles and I found having the laser wattage close to mine it was helpful but always expect to have to tweak to the many variables that cant be set in stone . Man made materials usually had very good accuracy .
Then there are the lies about laser power which threw me off ,along with sellers not being either helpful or honest …any way It cant hurt to have a starting point but TEST your self ,carefully if the material is expensive . Some times you don’t get 2 goes , lots to learn ,have fun !
I started building up some basic profiles for materials I’ve got on hand, using a small disc similar to this one
Lessons are being learnt.
Recognising YMMV, I found that using the Thunder library as a starting point got me better results much faster, and serves as a good fall-back when my tweaks get wayyy off.
In theory, a basic transformation tool could work:
Machine power as a scaling factor - W
Material properties - as ref’d in a MSDS or other Data Sheet. Density, absorbsion, flashpoint, etc
Material Thickness
In theory this could give a pretty decent starting-point.
I’ve been getting some decent results so far.
My biggest sticking-point has been cuts - cutting all the way through for a given material and not just ‘almost’. I can see pin-pricks coming through, corners look cool, but some lines don’t make it all the way unless I slow down or crank up, but then I get ‘flares’ & deposits (separate matter)
