Been reading a lot and getting some very good info and help so far. Thanks.
I searched, bur did not find what I was looking for. Has anyone come up with a general “Cheat sheet” for the laser settings and material you are burning?
I have read that a lot of people say it is “Trial and Error”.
That can cost a lot of $$ if you have to burn a project 2-3-4 times before you get it right.
I understand that not everyone has the same laser and each one is different from each other.
But there has to be a document out there that lists the material and how fast you should be moving and how much power you should need. Just as a starting point reference.
You’re looking for a “material library” for a laser of the same basic wavelength (beam color), source type (diode/CO2/fiber), and power class (output power) as you have. There are quite a few out there. Some better than others. Some free, some paid.
Check the LA Hobby Guy forum. Rich has made many available for free to registered members.
None will be good enough to bypass testing. None.
Don’t test on a full project. Test in small scale using purpose designed testing patterns. They’re compact and data dense. Lightburn has several built in under laser tools. Others can be downloaded, free or paid. Or you can make your own.
Have even tried it at the start of my laser carrier, a material library bought specific for my laser of a friendly mate from down under, unfortunately it was not useful.
There is no way around you need to do tests of all materials - before using them for real projects.
After the first 10 tests it goes strong and it is actually quite interesting to try out one’s growing experience.
There is a little waste when starting with a new material. Then the waste you get is mostly from screwups on your part. Once you get a particular material “dialed in”, you will find yourself using project scraps for other smaller projects. I use my “scraps” a lot for testing.
I am very sensitive to the waste issue. A big production run for me is 1 to 5 parts. I buy my material in lots of 12 pieces. If I was running 1000 parts, 1 or 2 scrapped would be a great production run.