Hi - I’ve been playing with my new laser engraver for a week now (Xtool d1 pro 20w) and I have a few problems to solve and questions to ask. I’m hoping some of you with more experience can help steer me in the right direction - massive thanks in advance to anyone who takes the time to write a response to these:
Materials:
Xtool does a great job of marketing how many materials will work and how fast you can engrave but my experience has been quite different. What are some general rules around engraving stainless steel, aluminum, concrete/cement, and ceramics? Am I wasting my time with a 20w diode like the D1 trying to engrave these materials? or is it possible? Is experimenting with different laser marking sprays/compounds going to help?
Time:
Processing time takes quite a bit longer than I expected, I’m often running jobs at full power to try and mark metal and it’ll take over an hour to do a single pass and I’ll barely see results after 4 passes - is this normal?
Alignment:
I’ve done my best to be very careful with framing/alignment but find most of my items end up either slightly or way off of what I intended. Is there a chance my gantry or another part of the laser is misaligned? if so, how would I troubleshoot this?
Cleaning:
How often do I need to do a full clean of the lens? I’ve read conflicting opinions but it seems like I lose some level of quality if I’m not doing a full clean after every time I run it. I consider a full clean to be removing the laser from the frame, removing the safety cover, and using IPA to clean all components of the laser vs. just doing a quick clean with a Q-tip on the lens without taking anything apart. (P.S I really wish Xtool had put a quick release on the laser to make cleaning easier - its a pain in the a*s to take apart this frequently)
Fumes/Vents:
I have built an air assist for the laser and I have an extraction tube running from the laser out of a window to a shopvac with a HEPA filter. Does this seem like enough? I still sense fumes in the 400 sq ft building I’m working in but I’m not sure if that’s expected. I’m not sure how else I’d reduce fumes further.
Okay thats it for now - again huge thank you to anyone who reads/replies to this
A simple guideline, if you can smell it you are breathing it…
Does that answer that question?
Yes they do, that’s how they sell them. I think they are pushing the limits… I’ve seen the advertisements and read the problems people have with trying to duplicate them, have never seen a finished item like they show. Doesn’t mean it can’t be done
The main problem is that many items, like rock and ceramics take a bit of power to perform well. These diodes are getting more powerful, but some of this is difficult even with my 40W co2 machine.
It boils down to laser frequency and how that frequency reacts with the material.
Alignment…
I have a China Blue, which is larger. I have a steel plate in the bottom I use for everything. It has a few holes drilled and I use them to hole a jig to align the object…
When it gets dirty… if you run smoky jobs it would be needed after most jobs. This is one of the things you figure out by what you are doing not by any kind of timing.
I’d clean the lens in place, if possible… I don’t think you can get the inside part of it dirty can you?
While @jkwilborn did a good job answering a lot, this one was a bit left out and I have some experience. Stainless steel works fine, it’s just a matter of dialing it in. I don’t have the 20W, only the 10W, but I’ve done things like stainless steel spoons, bottle openers, etc. Aluminum bare is a no-go from what I’ve experienced, however painted or anodized works really well and pretty fast. Concrete I haven’t done, but stone seems to take well, especially slate and brick. Ceramics? SOME glazes will take a laser with no covering, but for the best results, use titanium dioxide. It’s commonly used as a white pigment, and it’s what makes the “Norton white tile method” work with white spraypaint. However, I found just buying the powder cheap online and mixing say 3-4 tablespoons with 8-12 oz of 99% IPA in a cheap spray bottle works great. Just keep shaking it so it doesn’t settle for an even coat.
I want to say something like 1500-1800mm/min @ 100% power, 0.1 interval (which can obviously be tighter, you can see the lines) Bare steel, no marking spray or coating.
That is surprisingly fast, I’d think for that type of machine and the material…
I would think you could do a bit better with the interval. The diode spot is smaller than the general co2… which is around 0.10mm or 254 dpi/lpi. These dpssl seem down below that, even in it’s widest direction…
On the fiber a change of interval really makes a difference on how much heat gets to the material… This is a stainless dog tag. I’m varying the speed and interval. If you look at the marks for 457mm/s line, the wide variance is from a change in interval only.
I’ll try to do some tests, I should have some more bottle openers laying around. Speaking of, I DID find another picture of one I did for a buddy. Sorta NSFW, but it was a popular one to pass around.
We’ll just hide it behind this hyperlink text. It seems like 10W is enough to mark the surface, but I don’t think it puts enough power in to generate enough heat for colour changes. The 20W or 40W diodes should I think.
I finally got around to that test and have interesting results. Interval does seem a lot more important for the colour changes. I managed to barely get some out of my 10W.
The setup was speed left to right; 750, 1000, 1250, 1500mm/min. Bottom to top was interval 0.04, 0.06, 0.08, 0.1. Power was 100% for all. Aaaaand it seems pretty level across the board for speed. I can just barely tell a difference between 750 and 1500, but it’s not worth mentioning, I can obviously go much faster. I should try 2-3kmm/min.
ANYWAY, the interval shows a neat change. 0.04 looks kinda slate blue/black, lightens up to copper at 0.06, 0.08 is getting a little more bronze? To be a little golden at 0.1. Fascinating. @greenhouse’s 20W should have no problem getting colour out of stainless, just might take a lot of playing around. Might not be as bright or fast as fiber, but the fact it CAN is neat.
No, can’t really discern the feel between the marks and the surface tooling. The SPOON, however, has a very obvious texture to it. It instantly catches a thumbnail, and you can even feel a slight roughness under skin touch. Now that I think about it, I think I did that a LOT slower. Checking into it, yeah, the gcode file was set to 100mm/min vs the 1000 I remember wanting to set it, and with how small it was, wasn’t really discernable at the time.
I’m going to try to replicate that texture tomorrow.
It seems like 10W is enough to mark the surface, but I don’t think it puts enough power in to generate enough heat for colour changes. The 20W or 40W diodes should I think.
