Hi I am very new to this and just wondered if anyone could give me some advice/tips on engraving on stainless steel. I have some dog tags that I would like to engrave on to, but I have tried multiple times and yet every time they are still coming out too faint to see them properly. I have a creality cr-falcon 10w and I have used the settings 100% power at 500mm/m (which are the recommended parameters that came with the machine) as well as trying 100% power at 150mm/m (which i found on the creality website). It is still rather faint either way, and I cannot tell if this is something to do with an error in lightburn, for example I am doing something wrong with the image, or something else. I thought possibly it could be because I have not coated the tag before engraving it, which I have now ordered some spray that will come tomorrow.
Are you 100% positive that your focus length is correct?
Is the dog tag shiny? You may have damaged your laser lens with the reflection from the laser off the mirror surface. Related by not asked for advice…That is why you need to engrave mirrors from the back side.
Most likely your laser will need something to react with in order to achieve results on stainless steel or on wine glasses/shot glasses. White paint (the Norton Method) works pretty well but it is messy to clean up. I use cold galvanizing spray paint - that cleans up with cold water and a scrub pad.
Stainless is the only bare metal you can mark with a diode laser. You are not etching it. You are annealing, which means a change of color with heat. This is why it is faint.
If you want a solid black permanent marking, you need to use a laser spray made for this. When the laser hits it, the material is fused to the metal. Cermark is one brand, which is somewhat expensive. There are other brands that are less expensive, by a little bit.
I found Cermark produced great results with surprisingly low power.
That warning from @JimNM about reflectons from a shiny surface is valid. You should slightly tilt any reflective materials.