Greetings. I’m working on cutting out some Christmas ornaments out of 1/8 basswood, and wondered if anyone is having similar issues.
Cuts that go with the grain, or close to the same direction can usually make cut cleanly in 4 passes, at 100% power and .15 in/sec. Cuts that go across the grain require 6 or 7 passes.
Is there a feature in Lightburn that can slow down the cut in a certain direction? Or is there a tip I may be missing that would mitigate this issue?
Thanks much!
Are you able to rotate the workpiece by 90 degrees so that the grain runs in the opposite direction? You may be dealing with not only wood grain but also the asymmetry of the diode laser focal point. I’ve found that diode lasers typically cut better in one orientation than the other. If that’s the case, then this could either remedy or exasperate the situation.
An alternative strategy is to rotate the workpiece by 45 degrees so that you’re not favoring one orientation to another. You could similarly rotate the design within LightBurn.
I don’t believe there’s any straightforward way of changing cutting speed by axis for a given cut layer.
1 Like
Those are great suggestions, and I’ll give them a try. Thank you!
The wood in it’s grains are different structures in the wood and burn at different rates. You can see many examples where the grain has dramatic effects on the ‘engraved’ design. I say ‘engraved’ because the cut is just deeper same variance in grain and how it cuts.
Rotating is an effective solution if you are going a specific direction for the complete job, which only really occurs during an engraving. Vector cuts can go any direction. Usually cuts on a project are to remove a part or make parts, most require the head to go in different directions during the cut.
Good luck
Also, you may want to review this post I made earlier that talks about the challenges of cutting. I didn’t think to ask here but if you’re not already using air assist, you should do so.
1 Like
This topic was automatically closed 30 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.