HELP with Laserburn/GRBL/Universal Engraver

[Allthingsbuns (Michelle Jorgenson)]

Ok… so my end goal was to engrave my logo on an anodized aluminum tag. I bought the 15000mw Blue laser from Universal Engraver and LightBurn. I have spent countless hours going through all of the youtube videos to learn the terminology/basics of how to run this laser.

Problem is, I still don’t know what the settings are to be able to engrave the tags. i have even tried stainless still and nothing! I have never worked a laser before and a couple lessons honestly leave more questions than answers.

What do I need to do to get this thing to do what I need it to do??? And of course, I went on the advice of Universal Engraver that this machine would do what I need it to…blonde moment? I hope not…About $1k so far…

Thanks for anyones advice!

Shelly

[tim1962 (Tim Brown)]

Hi,
From the Universal Engraver FAQ page for your model:
Q16 Can it burn on the paint of aluminium?
A16 Yes. the machine can

You will probably have to use some coating like a black dry erase or sharpie pen and then use the laser to burn that substance into the metal if it is shiny metal. On anodized aluminum, you would need to burn off the anodized layer to get the silver color from underneath to show. You really have to experiment if the vendor can’t tell you the recommended settings. The two things you can control with a blue diode laser are the speed at which the laser moves across the surface, usually in mm per second or mm per minute. The other is the power level of the laser from 1% to 100%. For a test use Lightburn to draw a line and then start with something like 8mm/second and 50% power. Make a test burn. If you don’t see anything on the piece from the laser engraving, adjust to a slower speed (<8mm/s) and higher power (>50%). If what you see is too deep of an engrave, go with higher speed and lower power. I would reach out to the vendor to see if they have any recommended settings if you don’t want to do the test.

I have a Neje Master 2 20w and it had a learning curve to figure out the settings, but after a while, I got the feel for it and don’t have to make too many tests unless I am dealing with a new kind of substance I want to engrave.
Good luck.
Tim

[Allthingsbuns (Michelle Jorgenson)]

Thank you so very much for your advice and quick reply! I will give that a shot this am. Are there other settings I need to worry about such as perforation mode, distance of lens from metal, or any of the settings on this screenshot?

[tim1962 (Tim Brown)]

Those are the overall settings for your laser. Usually it will work best if you can find device and machine config files specific to your laser that someone else has created and tested and import in settings menu options. Some people have stated your laser is the same as the Eleksmaker and I found this thread about the settings for your GRBL file.

EleksMaker A3 Pro settings

I just purchased a EleksMaker A3Pro and this is my LightBurn console reading, everything seem to be working ok, but I get no position reading, and seem that I’m not getting the full output re-out from grbl, $10-3, no $30, $31, $3If your laser does not turn off between cuts, switch to the GRBL-M3 device Homing ok error: Setting disabled $$ $0=10 (step pulse, usec) $1=25 (step idle delay, msec) $2=0 (step port invert mask:00000000) $3=1 (dir port invert mask:00000001) $4=0 (step enable i…

Look at that post and possibly reach out to the folks that made it to see if they can share anything with you.

Tim

[Allthingsbuns (Michelle Jorgenson)]

Actually I got it to work yesterday! Speed 1000mm/m and 70% power No markers/coatings needed. It was all about dialing in the laser point and distance from the tag.

Thank you so much for all of your advice!

Shelly