I just received a new AtomStack Hurricane but I’m not new to lasers. I am having a issue when running it with Lightburn. I’m am cutting out parts for a small finger tabbed box in 3mm Basswood ply. The issue is the long straight cuts that do not have tabs. The tabs cut through no problem at a pretty high mm/m speed but the straight don’t. Now the obvious issue is that the tabs are not getting up to full speed but the long cuts are. I tried cutting the speed way back, like by a third and am still having the issue. Now the tabs are charring but still no love with the straight cuts. What am I missing? Any help would be appreciated here.
Use less power and more passes.
75% (of current setting) power and increase x 3 passes. Less char and cleaner cuts.
Make sure you have cross ventilation and AND and have the material off the grid enough to allow ventilation UNDER the material. Unless you also have downdraft… Honeycomb impedes cross ventilation.
1 Like
Hmm, seems counter intuitive to lower power that much, sort of negates the point of a more powerful machine (insert “Tool Time Tim” grunts) but I will give it a try. I have seen the procedure of lifting the work off the honey comb but have not done it, again I’ll give it a try. Thank you.
1 Like
Just because the Youtube video shows their laser “clean cuts 3mm bass wood in one pass” does not mean that is the best way to do something. Just because the speed-o-meter on my car goes to 160 mph does not mean that car will ever actually go 160 mph.
A slow moving laser puts more energy into the spot that has to go somewhere - if not all the way through your media, it gets trapped in the media. More energy is more heat, more heat is more charcoal. Faster passes and/or less powerful passes will cleanly ablate a shallower engraved line without transferring excess heat to the surrounding area.
For the earrings that I cut out of colored wood (10w diode), I usually use 10X passes at 100% power, I have the Rowmark 
wood held above my waste board by the thickness of a nickle. Also, set your focus closer to the surface than you would for a simple engrave… by 1/2 the depth of your media. That way the focal point is maximized for the middle of your media, rather than the top edge. The focal depth rapidly goes out of focus, making for less concentrated cutting action of your laser spot.
I do not promise results - you have to try out the variables on your machine and your media.
1 Like
romark = rowmark
Lasergraviermaterial - ColorShop® - Rowmark - mechanisch / Holz
1 Like