has anyone tried cutting 1"blue crafting foam with an ortur lm3 10w laser?
What are your optimum settings, I’ve wasted The time whole bunch and cannot seem to dial in a clean cut.
You are not likely to get a clean cut with that laser. Your depth of focus is maybe 2mm with that, so anything thicker and you’re not in focus and the kerf will start getting wider and you will be losing power. Your 1" foam is 10 times your focus depth.
Someone may come on and prove me wrong, but I don’t think so.
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Because blue foam reflects blue light and the laser emits blue-ish light, essentially all of the laser’s energy bounces off the foam without doing any damage.
What little is left is subject to @thelmuth’s observation about depth of field, where foam outside the focused zone gets even less energy.
Basically, a blue-light laser is the wrong hammer for this particular job.
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its the hammer that I have. I’ve got a coupe of 3d printers but they’re pretty bad at cutting, and a cricut which can’t cut that deep.
I’ve tried with a proxxon, but the design that I want is proving difficult to cut by hand.
I may need to make some kind of jig for it
Yeah, but not everything is a nail.
What about a hot wire machine, or a hot knife which is pretty cheap?
I have a proxxon, but I’m looking for a better way to cut complicated designs and doing it by hand isn’t going very well. a laser was a game changer for 5mm white foam and black Eva foam.
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