This was my very first try and it went perfectly! It was subtle enough and looked really good!
Next, it didn’t go so well. I tried engraving 4x with the same settings and you can see what’s wrong. Then I also tried all the other settings, but I can never get it the same as on the first picture. It either looks too dark and burned too deep or it misses chunks of letters. I’ve tried all sorts of speed and power combinations but it’s like a lottery, sometimes it engraves well enough, but most of the time it’s bad.
I don’t know what this type of paper is called in English, but I hope you can see it in the pictures.
These were the last settings that I used in the second picture.
It’s kind of a well known problem that white reflects much of the diode energy and can be difficult and inconsistent to cut or mark.
Try something other than white and see how that goes.
And make sure your focus is perfect.
Can I ask you how much darker of paper you needed to use to get reliable results? My preference is bright white paper.
I can imagine going to something slightly darker— like a cream color— if that yielded big improvements in consistency. I’d rather not move all the way to something truly dark if I can avoid it.
