Hi.
Welcome to the LB forum @unknownwake .
I second the suggestion @ednisley gave, the inconsistencies are most likely caused by different reflective/absorptive properties of the fabric.
I do agree that Your results are very good for the first tries as well.
When using low power density to burn/char fabric fibers, the amount of moisture and oxygen plays a role as well.
Especially if there’s synthetic and natural fibers mixed together.
When I was researching wax evaporation (Gestetner stencils) about a year ago, I came across a method where some sort of liquid solution was used in order to improve consistency when marking fabrics.
Since marking fabrics wasn’t what my research was about, unfortunately I don’t remember where I read about that, and can’t fnd it anymore either.
Since the Google algorithms have taken leaps back when used for searching something meaningful with too detailed description, a search with minimum amount of words I could thnk of:
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=marking+fabrics+with+diode+laser
One trick that both takes care of the wrinkles and improves the consistency of moisture and free oxygen when marking/cutting paper or fabric, is to mark/cut through a sheet of glass.
As long as the glass is thin and free of any coatings, it is relatively safe to do so, but when lasering a reflective surface there’s always a slim chance that a portion of the beam will reflect back and damage the lens or the diode.
A simple vacuum table will get rid of the wrinkles, but increases the amount of oxygen in the process.
Regards,
Sam
