help vector cutting wood

[Nadia Zois]

i am trying to vector cut 3 MM wood. and it will not cut all the way through. on SOME things it does. but some things it does not. wtf? on one design it cut out the circles but the rest of it was not cut all the way through. and its all hairline red lines . i double checked.

the lens is clean. etc.

i don't know what else to do..........

i am so frustrated. it seems to be a hit or miss with the vector cutting. sometimes it will work. most of the time it will not............like i have to end up punching it out the rest of the way. but then sometimes they get damaged doing that. ugh.

any insight on this problem would be great. i don't know what to do. i know i MUST be doing something wrong. i just don't know what?

i have a versalaser 2.30 25 watt. its about a year or so old

[Rodne Gold]

You might not have enough power to do this effectively with 25 w. Wood is a natural product and there is no universal setting for it , it's dryness , resin content , density of grain and so on varies , even across a single piece , it warps too , in thin sheets , so your focus point might vary across the sheet too..
Your beam might also be out of alignment and it varies across the table , so you might not have 25 W power at all points and it might not have the ideal profile and focus point.

[Joe Pelonio]

Like Rodney said the wood can vary greatly. Today I cut some 1/4" Baltic Birch ply in one pass at speed 8 power 100 on my 45 watt, then some 1/2" with two passes at speed 4 and then 10. On that 1/2", there were a few places perforated and not cut (Utility knife finished it). If you place the wood on strips of old scrap acrylic, they will "drop" when cut through, so you can make another pass if they are not cut through. Was that wood solid or ply? Sometimes ply is harder to cut due to the glues. Also, check for bowed boards, you may have to do a few at a time and refocus if it's not totally flat.

[Peter Meacham]

Nadia

I have a 25 watt (tests at 30 watts) and I have to cut 3mm plywood at 100 power and .85 or .75 speed and then I still may have portions of lines that I have to cut with a sharp knife if the wood was out of focus due to warping or maybe due to the glue or wood composition at that location.

This is on an older Trotec engraver.

But, it gets the job done, just slowly.

Pete

[Jack Burton]

Try to manual focus on the wood.
Try cutting in the center of the table.
Make sure all you lens'/mirrors are clean, including the lens in the back of the cabinet (not in the laser cartridge but the one before the carriage).

[Eric Seest]

Another thing you might want to try is to lower the PPI. I have found that the factory suggested settings are a little too high. I have been adjusting it from 100 to 20 PPI trying to find the correct setting for the woods I am working with.

[Daniel Reetz]

Using my Epilog Zing 24, I get reliable plywood cuts in 3mm Birch with the following settings:

100% power
57% speed
1100Hz

I have problems with the piece of wood being warped, and I have problems due to occasional bits of white filler paste in the wood. But that probably only cuts the per-sheet yield by ~15%.