Please can somebody help… I’ve tried everything i can think of and watched every video…
I have been engraving photo slates on a diode laser for ages now with no problem. I’ve recently upgraded to a CO2 Gweikecloud 50W laser. I cannot get it to engrave gradients with any success at all!
I’ve done the focus, interval, material and speed/power tests. I’ve tried processing the image both through Lightburn and Imagr.
The photo looks fine on the main screen of Lightburn but when pressing ‘preview’ it either comes out all white or all black. I’ve zoomed in and there is very minimal gradient. However, when engraved the photo looks terrible… I don’t know what I’m doing wrong…
Does anyone own a Gweikecloud or a similar laser and can help?
It’s nice to know what kind of machine you’re using, but mainly what controller and laser type. In other words, they shouldn’t need that specific machine if they have a similar device such as a co2 laser/Ruida controller…
What is the engraving mode you’re trying to use?
If it’s grayscale, which it sounds like from the description, there is a note when you set it up that for co2 it’s 3d type engraving … seems to work a bit different with a ss laser (diode)…
If this isn’t applicable and if possible, please post what your settings are for the laser and the artwork… The .lbrn2 file is helpful as we can see what you are doing…
I’ve done slate on both led and co2 machines… The only real problem with slate is the material varies so much between batches… Also some of the slate ‘burns’ dark, others light …
This is two different types of slate and the results…
I can engrave black and white slates (as in two tone colour) fine. I’m struggling with the gradients such as in photographs.
I’ve tried following the ImagR process which dithers it specifically for CO2 but to no avail. I’ve also used the grayscale method in Lightburn. I can’t really send you the settings as Im constantly trying new ones to try and get it to work but below are the ones I’m trying now.
At the moment I’m using settings: 250mm/sec, 35 max and 0 min. I tried using the pass-through when using the Imag-R processed ones but that didn’t work either.
My photographs are coming out just very flat with no gradient. I’ve attached two so you can see. I’ve tried adjusting the DPI also.
The grayscale is the most difficult to work with… Especially the way laser work… It also works different from your led laser.
When you engrave on slate (and most other materials) it damages the surface, like taking a blow torch to it, it will shatter, so the size of the lasers ‘damage’ is generally larger than focused beam.
If you look at the first image, that’s probably the range of ‘gray’ you will get…if you scan squish the grayscale/power to match that’s probably the best you will be able to do on that material.
I think you will do better with a dither with something other than grayscale, for co2 grayscale is 3d engraving… Maybe thinking of it as a printing press where how it’s dithered makes the photo and it’s not a grayscale…
The cannabis leaf is a Stucki dither, click on it and zoom in you can see the dither…
Lots of people do slate, so I’m surprised you haven’t had more comments.
Power/speed is critical in any machining operation and it takes some time to dial it in.
If you can think about the material and what happens when it gets ‘lased’…I think it’s helpful in solving these problems.
If you are scanning an image where the head is just going back and forth the minimum power setting isn’t used. The Ruida will figure out the overscan to ensure the head is at the layer speed when it lases, so no need for a minimum power value.
