Engraving on bevel and rotary axis

[Greg44 (Gregory)]

Hello everyone,

Is it possible to engrave all around a 45° beveled surface?

[MikeyH (Mike Hembrey)]

If the surface to be engraved is flat at the top (red line touching) of the rotary, you should be able to do that. As the rotary turns, the presented surface would remain level. This should be true at any angle of rotary tilt.

[Greg44 (Gregory)]

After numerous tests, it works!

I still have a lot of work to do on the settings before trying it on a real stainless steel part, but this is already very encouraging.

Thank you.

Do you have any recommendations for the settings?

[soniclab (Jeremy Hutchinson)]

Cool custom rotary setup. Is that all your design?

Please share your current rotary settings so we can see.

For dark text on stainless I would suggest a slight defocus. Unless you are going for a deep engraved look.

Just keep in mind that the metal will get hot… Hope you’re using an abs or nylon print for your jig so it doesn’t melt.

[MikeyH (Mike Hembrey)]

Good news and bad news… Good that it working for you. Bad that I only have diodes so I have no settings to offer for SS.

[Greg44 (Gregory)]

Yes, I made this axis because I couldn’t focus with the huge axis that came with my Monport laser ( $300).

The red axis in the picture of my 3D file will be made of aluminum, and I also use a small fan during engraving.

For 316L stainless steel (0.2mm deep engraving) i use this setting whitout defocus:

Engraving passes:
MaxPower 25
Speed 1000
Frequency 35
Q-pulse 200
Bi-directional fill
number Passes 200
Angle 45
Interval 0.01

Cleaning passes:
MaxPower 20
Speed 1900
Frequency 20
Q-pulse 200
Bi-directional fill
number Passes 1
Angle 15
Interval 0.016

However, I am not completely satisfied because the engraving retains a black outline, and this takes a lot of time.

I am new to engraving and am having a lot of trouble finding the right settings for me.

Even with the Material Test Tool, I don’t know where to start, I will need a methodology to find my fine parameters, like:

• 1st: power/speed test

• 2nd: speed/frequency test

• 3rd: …

Could you help me find this?

[soniclab (Jeremy Hutchinson)]

@Greg44

I am new to engraving and am having a lot of trouble finding the right settings

It sounds to me like you’re trying for a fairly deep engraving with 200 passes.

Are you using a lower power and more passes to try to keep the heat of the metal down?
You did state you’re using a small fan for cooling.

What happens if you increase your power and do less passes?

Have you also tried enabling wobble? Wobble can remove a little bit more material at once. Just note that it will also increase your engraving time significantly. So you may be able to do more work with less passes with a slight compromise with time per pass.

[Greg44 (Gregory)]

Hi Jeremy!

Here is my setup with the small fan and a XYR table for greater precision.

I tried three settings on 316L:

1. My current setting (4 min 30 sec)
2. My current setting with 100 passes and 50% power (2 min 30 sec)
3. My current setting with 100 passes and default wobbel enabled (9 min 30 sec)

Here’s what I see (difficult to show with my photos/ Before and after cleaning) :

• Engravings 2 and 3 are twice as deep but much more black.
• The edges are darker

[soniclab (Jeremy Hutchinson)]

I never did ask you what lens you’re using.

[Greg44 (Gregory)]

It’s a 175*175mm lens

[soniclab (Jeremy Hutchinson)]

@Greg44

175*175mm lens

Just be aware that a wider lens will offer less power density than a narrow field of view.

You might consider a 70mm lens for deep engravings on such a small area.