Is there a chart for recommended settings for speed, max power, min power, and line interval? I’m brand new to this all so I’d like to start somewhere.
Maybe a chart that has different materials that you engrave on and the settings recommended
Hi Jennifer,
you have to tell us what Laser you are using. The settings are differently for each Laser. Even lasers of the same construction often require different settings because different mirrors, different optics, different factory settings and so on. The whole thing is: testing testing testing …
Greets
Hartmut
oops! sorry. laguna C02 w150
You really need to test each material to see how it engraves and cuts at a variety of speeds and power. In general for engraving you want to move as fast as your laser allows (without loosing steps), when cutting you will need to move much slower. It is all about the amount of energy you apply to the material, moving slow with high power puts the most energy into the material, so it cut through it, moving very fast a low to medium powers will just engrave the surface.
So very rough rules of thumb to help you decide where to start the test is:
For raster engraving you want to move fast (350 mm/sec) and low/medium power (20 to 30%)
For cutting 1/4 inch wood you want to move slow (10 to 15 mm/sec and medium to high power (60 to 80%)
To vector engrave you want to move medium (50 to 70 mm/sec) with low/medium (20 to 30% power)
When cutting you want to move as fast as possible with the power around 65% so you make test cuts while increasing the speed and leaving the power at 65% until you reach a speed where it did not cut all the way through. Then just back off the speed a few mm/sec and you have found your optimal speed and power.
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Boss Laser has a chart that might work as a rough starting point for you:
https://www.bosslaser.com/laser-settings
I found a post I made earlier that has links to some good resources for understand settings with some starting points.
One of these links points to Boss Laser (Oz links above) who publishes settings for similar lasers, definitely worth a look.
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