I’ve been trying to engrave glass cups with my CO₂ laser using the following settings:
With these parameters, the glass tends to crack, but when I lower the power, it doesn’t engrave at all.
Do you have any advice or suggestions on how to fix this?
The only possible response to this is too much heat.
Your power into the glass is swinging between 40w and 60w, at 24000mm/m.
I have to surface prep mine with a dry erase marker, but these are my settings using a 10w diode laser
1800mm/m
60% power (6w)
318 LPI
Air Assist
Dividing by 26 (48/1.8), you are using an equivalent 1.5w if you slow it down and reduce power using my settings. Unfortunately, I have no idea how efficient the CO2 is in heating the glass, which does depend on the glass chemical composition.
If reducing power stops the etching, can you slow down the speed to compensate? I would also lower your Min Power to maybe 15%. Your spread is almost just an on/off range.
Disclaimer: I am just a Diode Guy with no CO2, Fiber, or X-ray machines.
The Interval is likely too small for a 100 W CO₂ laser, because the focused spot diameter will be around 0.2 mm. Doubling the interval will probably work fine after tuning the power, with the additional benefit of considerably reducing the job time.
If the layer is set to Fill, then the Min power does not apply, because the controller moves the laser head at 400 mm/s across the design at the Max power level. A larger Interval will prevent (or at least reduce) reheating the glass affected by the previous pass.
However, if the layer is set to Line, then the laser head cannot reach 400 mm/s while following short vectors, the Min power applies, and the laser will definitely overcook intricate areas.
Screenshots of layer settings and design will help identify what’s going on.
The layer is set to fill for the job I’m working on. I’ll try using a larger interval then — thank you very much. These are the parameters I’ve been using.
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