Laser Cutter Material Settings: Difference between revisions

From CoMakingSpace Wiki

(added anodised aluminium engraving)
(→‎Epilog Zing (30 W): experience with XPS)
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| surface
| surface
| black & white design
| black & white design
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! scope="row"| [[XPS]] (extruded polystyrene)
| 20 mm
| cut
| 45
| 100
|
|
| center (-10 mm)
| very wide kerf (~ 2 mm)!
|}




[[Category:Laser Cutting]]
[[Category:Laser Cutting]]

Revision as of 14:11, 14 January 2019

Unfortunately you can't just calculate the perfect settings based on the power ("Watts") of a laser cutter because the actually delivered energy is always based on a combination of power and speed, which is different for each brand or model of laser cutter. To make things more complicated, 100 % power in a cutting profile is not the same as 100 % power in an engraving profile...

As there is always some trial and error involved, please share your experience with the others! You can often use experience from other machines as a rough starting point.

In general, cutting is usually done at 100 % power and the highest speed that will still result in a reliable cut. If 100 % speed still gets you through (e.g. paper or cardboard), you should reduce the power until you find the sweet spot. Besides the power setting, you can influence the invested energy by altering the pulse frequency - you may want to go lower on flammable materials like wood, where edges might otherwise become black, and higher on plastics like acrylic glass where you are aiming for a "flame-polished" edge. page 46

Once we have a permanent machine, we should also work on a github repository with VisiCut settings again.

Epilog Zing (30 W)

Here's what we've tried so far - please add your own experiences!

Material Thickness Operation Power Speed Resolution (dpi) Frequency Focus Comments
Poplar Plywood 4 mm cut 80 100 500 center (-2 mm)
Poplar Plywood 4 mm - any 3D engrave 100 75 250 surface simple black & white design - works for QR Codes!
Poplar Plywood 4 mm engrave 100 100 250 surface simple black & white design - nice brown color as result
Corrugated Fiberboard 2 mm cut 25 100 surface
Silver anodised aluminium engrave 50 100 500 surface black & white design
XPS (extruded polystyrene) 20 mm cut 45 100 center (-10 mm) very wide kerf (~ 2 mm)!