[Gary Cooper]

hi there everyone now i know what you are going to say BUT just wondered if there was a rough guide to setting for different matirials out there....

if so could someone kindly post it up here.... someone must of tried most matirials and have a list.....

i know there are a few factors involved machine wattage etc but there must be a baseline.....

so any comments would really be of help

thanks inadvance

Gary

[mondo50m]

I have not seen such a guide, but it would sure be nice to have a baseline. At least it would be a starting point.

Milt

[Gary Cooper]

hi there we are at the moment trying different stuff when we have finished we will try and post some settings as a guide only.....

what laser machine are you using we have a 100w reci tube in ours and i think the settings are the hardest thing to sort out once you get them right i think we will be somewhere on the right track

also if anyone else has setting they would like to share please post here

I.E wattage of laser,matirial used and speed and power settings....

many thanks

Gary

[FrontlineLasers]

I think you are on the right track with what you are doing, trying new
materials and documenting the settings.

Alot of things affect the quality of a cutting or engraving job. Things like
the focus, alignment, mirror/lens quality-cleanliness, hours on the laser tube,
which cannot be duplicated from one machine to the next.
I know what you mean though with wanting a baseline to start with.

What I do to get a cut setting
for a material is make a line 1 inch long and then set like 50% power and
50 speed and see how that goes. Depending on how that cuts, reduce or
increase the speed/power to get the best combination for that material, but
that will change with thickness of the same material too. It's better to run
a slow speed and lower power as long as the material does not melt or catch
fire to help your tube last longer. If you are in a production environment
where time is money, then you could run a higher power and faster speed,
still it's best not to run the Chinese lasers over 90% power, and be sure to
always have your water cooling system running. For engraving jobs, I type
out a word or two in small font and run it to find the optimal settings. For
a cutting job, I set focus (manually) so it's focused about halfway through
the material, for a raster job set the focus to the surface of the material.

I have an excel spreadsheet file I can post that I use to keep track of
different materials for my 60w if you were interested in seeing that.

Jamie

[Gary Cooper]

why thanks jamie that would be of great help i will send you over some photos of stuff i have done. what i have done is made a template with 10 small blocks and change speed setting for marking with power decreasing by 10 every block and it has done us well as give us the baseline we need...

also done the same for the cutting guide for each thickness i mean once you have the right setting for the cutting it is only 1 setting per thickness which is easy.. it is the marking that there are loads of varables....???

but thanks for your time and look forward to getting that chart

cheers

Gary

[FrontlineLasers]

It's nothing fancy, but it works to keep track of settings for me.

I saved it as older format excel and also pdf so most everyone can download
and use, see attachments. I just print and fill in with data, I don't have it
input into excel yet, but maybe if several people download and fill in the data
then post it back on here we'll help more people have an idea of the settings
used for a given material and laser wattage.

Looking forward to your pictures.

Jamie

[Gary Cooper]

Ok cool I will upload my setting for you tmrw ok

[Gary Cooper]

hi there sorry for the late reply been away here are the setting we have tested so far and used what we beleive to get the best results we are using a 100w reci tube laser machine...

[FrontlineLasers]

Thanks for posting that. Is the stainless settings using Thermark coating?
Jamie