Precision settings

Hello everyone.

Im a newbie into this. Starting to understand settings and trying to get it as better as possible.
Im trying to engrave some texts. And i cant get it even closed to what i want.
Already tried lots of combinations with overscanning lines per inch and some other things, and i always get blurred letters.

Any idea how can i try to make it look better?
This is 0.2mm thick aluminum sheet.

Thank you for your help !



I would suggest first getting rid of the commas in the speed and power, Line Interval and lines per inch.

Speed 3000
Power 20
Lines per inch 379
Line Interval .0670

I think those are locale-specific “decimal points”, as the numeric values make sense.

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MY bad, i’ve never seen commas used in any of those fields

A big chunk of the world uses commas instead of decimal points. Having grown up in the USA, I sometimes have to take a double look to ensure I’m reading it properly..


Generally speaking, don’t let it keep you up at night.


@TinoVieira

A visible diode on aluminum isn’t what I’d call the right tool for the job. You might do better with one of the coating made specifically for aluminum. Brilliance makes an Aluminum coating.

:smiley_cat:

Yes, commas here are for decimals :stuck_out_tongue:
We use dots for hundreds for example. We can either do “1000,00” or “1.000,00”.
So, i dont think my problems are commas.

Anyway, @jkwilborn this are aluminum sheet that i buy already with this “black mark”. They are completly black like that, and im just trying to engrave it.

It looks like everything i do, i have to do it really slow. Im even trying to engrave wood, and for me to have a good quallity in my letters, i have to set the speed like 1000, or lower, or ill get letter like that one.

TinoVieira is a Portuguese guy like me (judging by the name and the “.pt” of the attached image). Just as he mentioned, here in Portugal and much of Europe, commas are used to separate decimals. The comma can be useful when fine-tuning is needed.

However, the problem described here seems to me to be of mechanical origin. Without knowing exactly how the engraving is being done, it’s difficult to say why, but I would say that the engraving isn’t being done in a linear mode, but I could be wrong…

If i am not wrong he’s using black anodized aluminum as I am using to do some identification plates for industrial machines. Probably he don’t need to cut or carve on them. :wink:

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Interval 0,05

The photo is white with dark letters, as far as I can tell.

Doesn’t appear to be black, so I’ve got all the information incorrect. :poop:

:smiley_cat:

Your vision is much more trained than mine!!! :smiley:
I understood that it would be anodized aluminum but it was because of the outline, which is the same color as the identification plates that I use.
But according to a material test I did, with higher powers, it can create discoloration. :wink:

I don’t know how the engraving was done, but it may have been with the text inverted and only the outline was “burned”. :thinking:

Is your aluminum card really flat?

Forgive me but it’s early morning and I didn’t understand if the question is for @jkwilborn who copied @TinoVieira’s photo or for me who published a material test image… :thinking: :laughing:

Oh sorry it was for you, bad manipulation, have a nice day.

No problem!!! :+1: :wink:
To answer your question, yes, perfectly flat (taken from a batch of 50 cards) sitting on a honeycomb base. The optical power of the laser is 5W.

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Hello, your DPI seems a little high on a TS2 10W I use 317 DPI. 0,05 en intervalle de ligne ,vitesse 1000 et puissance de 20%,bien entendu ,c’est pour 10w et je dispose de l’autofocus. 3000 de vitesse sempble un pzu élevé, va peut entraîner de légers tremblement si vous avez un léger jeux.De plus il est primordial de bien prendre le temps de regler les deux voir les 3 axes,de bien netoyer les roue de guidage a chaque utilisation. Cordialement

Yes, I’m using the exact same cards as @Kuth is using ( and yes, im portugueses btw ).

When i was engraving wood, i had some issues too. I understood that i was going to fast on letters, and even the font i was using was not helping. It looks like, with small letters, i get better results when doing it really slow.

In this case, it looks like my problem is trying to do it “inverted” ( dont know exaclty if its the correct way to say it ). So, the card is black, and i would like to engrave it in a way to leave letters in black.

@Kuth there in your picture how did you engraved the letters? “Line” and what more ?

I would do it exactly the same way: create a rectangle and create the text inside it, set both to “Fill,” and then reverse the engraving. This way you should get the result you want.

This certainly wasn’t the first material test I’ve done. I’ve probably done others (I don’t remember, but it’s typical) and I made the most of it.

With the letters I simply set the settings in the “Material Test” tool that Lightburn provides to “Line,” as you mentioned, and probably the power to 9.5 and the speed around 1750.

Meanwhile, I was reading a review of the machine you have on your profile and I realize you should adjust your settings. The speed already seemed too high to me, but since it’s a machine from a reputable brand, I assumed it had better performance than mine. However, in the review I saw (if you jump immediately to minute 4.23), you’ll notice that the speeds are much lower.

Another thing I noticed was that the laser’s focal point is 0.1mm, and you have 0.067 in the layer settings (this is basically half the “resolution”). If you put two 0.1mm points spaced 0.6mm apart center-to-center, you’ll overlap, and it probably won’t work as expected.
I recommend that you watch this video from beginning to end, although it is a CO2 machine it is very useful for diode laser machines.

(Reply edited because this video stays in land when I replyed. :laughing:)
At minute 8:00 you have an example of what can happen when overlapping the points (lines in this case) but you should start watching the video from the beginning. :wink:

If there’s anything else you think I can help with (I’m no expert, just a heads up :wink:), you can send me a private message in Portuguese, which will be easier to explain.

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It seems this video is not available?.. :thinking:
Can anyone confirm it for me?!!! :thinking:

Yes, it says if not available.

:smiley_cat:

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Yes, its unnavailable for me too. But earlier this morning i was able to see it when i first read your message lol
So, maybe it got unavailable in the mean time. I was trying to send you a private message but … i cant see a way to send private messages from here through your profile page :sweat_smile:

Anyway, i think that maybe this is a mechanic issue?
Just see here … it looks that it doesnt even follow lines properlly. That was with a speed set to 500(top) and 1000(bottom). So i dont even thing that this is a speed issue.
What you think?