Hey all,
I have trying to no avail to perform the norton white tile method using a picture, 6x6 gloss tile, Lightburn 2.0.05 version, a longer Ray5 10W diode laser engraver. No matter what setting I use from Dither, stucki, Jarvis, greyscale, etc… the results are the same (slight variations). As per many, many videos I am using Rust-oleum 2x ultra cover paint/primer. I have used two or three coats, even one once. The attached picture is the standard result. What can I change to get it to come out right?
You appear to have the right setup to do the NTM method. There are a gazillion postings on what works, what does not, and lots of frustration. I too have had mixed results. I even bought a 100 cnt box of tiles just to experiment with. What I say next is no indication I am any sort of authority.
The laser has two colors, burned and not burned. There is no grey mode available, so it is controlling the contrast and Gamma (still trying to understand this one) that produces acceptable results. The image quality is what determines pass or fail. What none of the videos show is the stack of rejected tiles produced to get one acceptable tile. I know at this point I have not helped much. But I think increasing the Gamma to get better distinction between the light and dark areas will help. Also make sure your paint coat is not too thick. One person mentioned 3 very light coats.
To be honest, as I always am, my only acceptable successes were with greyscale and white acrylic paint, yet everyone else says use Stucki or Jarvis. Go figure!
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Thank you! I will try tomorrow and post the result. Also, what speed and power do you use?
First off, diode laser don’t do very well with grayscale. They can do it but because grayscale uses various shading getting it dialed in is hard and even harder to reproduce a second time. Dithering (Jarvis, stucki) uses a pattern of dots to mimic the shading.
You don’t mention what setting you have tried such on the tile you are showing here. A couple of thin even coats of the paint should be good. It definitely took me a while to get it down, but the one thing that helped was was going about 2700-2900 mm/m and 270-300 dpi. For your 10w laser you might try around 60-70 power. When you need to make adjustments, only change one of those settings at a time. Making too many changes at once and you won’t know which one is working and which isn’t. Hope that helps and don’t give up. Once you get it down it’s extremely satisfying and fun!
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I believe that you should use a dither of some type and not grayscale. It boils down to how the lasers effect has on the targeted material.
When you use the NTM, it’s only black and white or very little gray. This is because when it gets lased, it does a molecular bond with the Titanium Oxide and the tile. So gray isn’t really feasible. They work very much like a black and white printer or newspaper.
What makes them is to use a dither of some type, I commonly use stucki as a dither.
This is a long thread, but it might enlighten you a bit on this.
Good luck.
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