Good morning,
I am new to laser cutting and tried it for the first time yesterday. I tried to cut a vector downloaded from the internet. I was cutting 3mm thick plywood and the speed was 100mm/sec and the power was 100%. I am not using air assist just yet, (got one on order) Anyway the laser did 100 passes and only managed to break through the plywood in a few areas the rest was still firmly attached. There was minimal scorching of the surface of the plywood which was good but I was disappointed that the laser took so many passes and still didn’t complete the operation. Is this what I should have expected?
The laser is a 20W laser which I think should be powerful enough to do a better job.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Regards Mick
In Device Settings check S-value max. This should be at 1000. It’s sometimes found @ 255.
Change the value if needed and re-run your test.
Thanks Will, I will have a look tonight.
regards Mick
I contacted Foxalien and this is their response which I will check tonight.
May I ask did you set the correct focus point?
Please clean the laser lens to make a test.
Please enter $$ in the console window to check default maximum S value whether $30=1000 or $30=10000.
If $30=1000, please set maximum S value to 1000 on software.
If $30=10000, please set maximum S value to 10000 on software. Otherwise, S1000 is just 1/10 of the laser power. It is too weak to engrave.
I checked the settings which were correct, I had another go at recutting the same shape and reduced the speed from 100mm/sec to 20mm/sec and after 5 passes the shape was cut out properly.