Not engraving thin lines perpendicular to scanning

[Resilient (Justin)]

I am having an issue where I have a powerful laser (100w, better suited to cutting) trying to engrave some leatherette which has a thin layer of black material, then a thin layer of silver, then black again. If you engrave for too short or too long of a time, you end up with black. If you get it just right, you get silver.

I am running into an issue where thin lines that are perpendicular to the line of travel, those running left to right in the photo, are not quite getting enough power to get through the black layer. But the machine is already set at minimum power. So if I slow it down any further, it starts engraving through the silver on the solid silver bits (but the thin lines then show up better).

Are there any settings that would cause it to kick on a little sooner or with a little more power for these really quick bursts for the thin lines? This is connected to a machine with a Ruida controller if there are any settings there I could tweak.

[Stroonzo (Jeff)]

First, be sure this leatherette is safe to be processing in your laser. That coating is usually PVC in leatherette. Processing PVC in your machine will quickly corrode the internals / electronics, produce toxic gas, and foul the optics.

In general and assuming a safe working material, with the Ruida controller you have a couple of options:

• Familiarize yourself with the effects and tuning of min / max and its correlation to velocity, acceleration, etc:
  Confused about best approach to min power setting - #2 by Stroonzo

• For this second part and specific to this question:

@Resilient

settings that would cause it to kick on a little sooner or with a little more power for these really quick bursts for the thin lines

There is a special mode for scanning (fill) you can set on the controller. It is literally called “Special Mode” for the Engraving Mode:

From Ruida:
Scanning Mode: it is divided into general mode and special mode for option. If special mode is used, the laser power should be increased. The smaller the speckle percentage is, the more the laser power reduces. The laser power to set should be larger in order to reach the same scanning depth. The purpose to select the special mode is to make the laser light at high power and short time. On the depth scanning the effect that the bottom is flatter is obtained, but it should be noticeable that if the speckle adjustment is not appropriate, it can achieve this goal. If the high power remains short, the lighting mode will influence the life of the laser. The system will default the selection of general mode.

[Resilient (Justin)]

Thanks, I will give that a shot tomorrow. It sounds like, depending on the quality of translation, like this might solve my issue!

The material is safe for laser engraving. I tested it with the copper test and it is supplied by a US sign supply wholesaler and it includes suggested settings for various laser systems. So I sure hope they know it is laser safe.