My 15th machine came today!

[John Bion]

Congratulations Kev! Hope it proves very profitable for you. Quite keen on one myself

[Rodne Gold]

Yeh. I raised my hatch line interval to 0.08 .. seems to work just as well .. a MASSIVE time saving
1min 37 sec vs 5 min 50 sec for the same job
thanks for the tip guys

[matthew knott]

.02 is way to tight unless you are using a 100mm lens and marking tiny characters.
For even more time savings try the different fill patterns.
Interested to know what the default settings you guys are using for laser on and laser off times
This can have a BIG effect on quality of mark and time it takes

[Kev Williams]

Ran 2 paying jobs last night- one job shaved 75% off the LS900 engraving time, the other job I didn't do a side-by-side, but probably 80-85% time savings. Black anodized parts.

I just ran a .02 hatch on some brass plated steel at high speed, trying to get the steel at light as possible once the brass has been gone thru. Seemed to work a little better than .05 did, but still playing

One of my customers dropped off a powdercoated aluminum part that had been fiber etched by another engraver they use. It was engraved in a double + and - 45° hatch. Looks knurled under a loupe. Seems to catch the light nicely, it's a very bright white, although my single 45 hatch was just as white. I like the double hatch, but can't figure out a way to do it in one setup-- unless stacking the second version on top of the first in a different color works, guess it will?

Some the parameter settings would be nice to know what they actually do? Like, on the 'advanced' tab, this shows settings Triumph used to engrave a photo on anodized. What's "jump"? Or anything else on this menu?




And there's a bunch of stuff in the hatch menu- the only one's I've actually figured out is the 'enable', 'follow edge once', hatch angle and spacing. Hatch type is kind of self explanatory, but chosing the 'diagonal' hatch option doesn't DRAW it that way?
Mark contour? what does it change? All calc? Hatch1 / 2 / 3, no clue! Offsets I can probably figure out with practice- Line reduction? NumLoops? Loop distance? Hatch one by one? Auto rotate hatch, I tried that, didn't seem to change anything...
---all this makes me feel a bit stupid!

[Rodne Gold]

Kev , a semi decent manual is here
http://www.frontlaser.com/ezcad-2-7-6-software-manual/

[Kev Williams]

NICE, thank you!

[Keith Winter]

Very generous of you to share all the settings Rodne!

I have the almost identical machine .. 20 w IPG fiber
110 x 110mm work area
lens is a 112-163..whatever that may mean .. my focal gauge from lens rim to workpiece is exactly 192mm (made an acrylic gauge)
Ezcad

foot switch = manual f2 (start mark)

you need to do 2 things

1 - calibrate the actual engraving
2. calibrate the red square

1. engrave a 10cm x 10cm square

Measure it and check it isnt barreled sided , sloped , has concave sides etc .. if its NOT exact and the sides not dead straight
then go to params (f3)

the first tab is "field" and you will see you can make adjustments
scale corrects for actual vs desired size
the rest have to do with the shape of the square
get the square to be exact by fiddling with values

once you got your cut/engraving 100%
then go to the tab "other" in params and click on red light pointer
mess with the settings till the red light pointer is exactly the same as the cut/engraving
Not too difficult

I too cannot get a solid black on aluminium .. even with 10 speed and 100 power (painfully slow).. best is a dark grey

As to metals , often the mark looks slightly brownish straight off the laser , but a wash with a cloth and some dishwasher liquid or a very light abraisive houshold cleaner takes away the brown "overburn" , crisps up the image and makes it black



Here are my settings for various materials .. works supremely on most laser engraving lams .. except those with white substrates

You will note that I havent used superspeeds like 3000 + -- or even 1000+ as with very fast speeds , very small letters do not get properly hatched
There are some corrections for this as well , I havent fiddled with them .. less detailed graphics can support higher speeds



MATERIAL SPEED POWER FREQ


Bronze black rowmark 800 40 20
Cutting rowmarks 15 100 20
blue mirror 250 100 20
pink mirror 600 70 20
blue white cannot mark
sparkle gold black 800 50 20
white black 800 50 20
black mirror 500 100 20
not a good mark
gold black row 800 40 20
silver black 800 40 20
red mirror 500 100 20
purple mirror 450 100 20
not a good mark
gold mirror 450 100 20
black white 2pass 1000 100 20
not a good mark
silver mirror 600 90 20
Black acrylic 800 90 20
blue acrylic 500 100 20
white abs grey mark 800 40 20
anodised colour 600 100 20
anodised black lightish wht 600 100 20
anodised black , white mark 2 pass as above
anodised natural light mark 800 100 20
anodised natural dark mark 150 100 20
raw alluminium grey mark 100 100 20
chrome 100 100 20
stainless polish 1200 30 200
stainless frost 800 80 200
stainless black 100 100 20
brass frost 700 90 100
brass black 80 100 20


I use only one type of hatch .. 0 degrees , 0.02mm line spacing . will experiment more...

[Gary Hair]

Kev,
The way to get multiple hatch angles is to click on the "2" or "3" to the right of "Hatch1". Then click "Enable" and you can set the parameters as you like. I usually use 45 and 135 degrees. The particular hatch type you have selected isn't the fastest, you want the one that looks similar but is solid blue lines. One caveat though - if you have large areas to engrave this particular hatch may leave a pattern that doesn't look great. Either use the red/blue zig-zag hatch or vary the angle to see if you can make it go away. You should probably also deselect Mark Contour and Follow Edge Once, both will outline the area you are marking and for small graphics and text it is a waste of time. Since I do 1,000's of ano parts a week I have become fairly adept at shaving time without sacrificing quality - always looking for better/faster!

[Gary Hair]

I have the almost identical machine .. 20 w IPG fiber
MATERIAL SPEED POWER FREQ

Anyone trying these settings should keep in mind that the power of their machine dictates the lowest freq setting, 20 watt = 20 freq, 30 watt = 30 freq, etc., etc.

I only use low frequency, 30 on mine, for hogging out metal fast. For a nicer looking finish on anodized aluminum I use something between 40 and 60, that gives me a nice and bright white mark where 20 would etch into the surface.

[Kev Williams]

Gar,

I found that out (rotate the hatch) in the instruction manual Rodne so kindly provided explained all that! The manual is a big help, along with everyone else!

[Neville Stewart]

Gar,

I found that out (rotate the hatch) in the instruction manual Rodne so kindly provided explained all that! The manual is a big help, along with everyone else!

If you have "wobble" under advanced settings it will give a decent black mark in aluminum.

[Matt McCoy]

Will the fiber replace a handful of machines for you?

[Kev Williams]

If you have "wobble" under advanced settings it will give a decent black mark in aluminum.

I do have "wobble", which I don't believe is in the instruction manual-- been wondering what it's for? Any idea what it actually does? I've been able to get a decently dark gray in aluminum so I'll have to try it

Gary- on frequency, my 30w machine allows 20 to 200 to be entered-- not sure if 20 is actually 20 however...?

I've also figured out most of the offset settings. Yet the one I can't find is the one I really need, how to offset the outlines OUTWARD. Using negative numbers doesn't work. However, negative numbers in the "Line Reduction" setting DOES expand the hatch beyond the outline boundaries- but no way to expand the actual outline? And, I was getting weird results with the hatch, some of the fill would connect between 2 different letters (testing the word TEXT). The reason I'd like to expand the outlines? So I can match engraving done with the other lasers! Need to compensate for the extremely narrow beam...

And the "auto rotate hatch"-- Instruction manual says
Refers to after every marking, the hatch line will fill the revolving angle
which we setted automatically to marking again. For example, angle is 0, auto rotate angle is 30,
the first mark angle is 0, the second is 30, the third is 60, and so on.
--but no matter what I've done or tried- restarting the same job or having it do several loops- I can't get it to auto-rotate a thing, always engraves the exact same thing each time...

I did figure out a near-perfect Cermark replica setting-- was having trouble with burning and it being too brown, and sometimes severely warping the metal.
What I did that worked great: 500 speed, 100 power, 200 freq, .01 hatch, and defocused the lens about .080 (2mm). Worked fantastic on satin stainless. However, not quite as well on a piece of polished SS. Not sure if it's focus or the material itself but some tweaking should help.

I've also got the rotary *somewhat* figured out, had 2 hours of typing about that disappear on me the other night --

The one thing that's escaping me is getting steel and stainless to deep engrave. I've done okay with aluminum, but still need to figure out the cleanup procedure. But steel, I can 'etch' it great- I can bright polish, get nice shades of gray, gold and brown coloring in varying surface textures and a close match to Cermark, but haven't figured out the magical "engraving" settings. I've run 60-pass test runs in several settings configurations. I either get a bright gnarly etch, or a black slaggy gnarly etch, but nothing that resembles "engraving"....

Will this thing replace several machines? Hardly! While it can do some things my other machines do, It actually won't be able to replace any of them. However, it WILL do things none of my other machines can do. So it's simply a needed addition! --another step forward in my technology cycle... (just had to get that in there)

[Gary Hair]

Gary- on frequency, my 30w machine allows 20 to 200 to be entered-- not sure if 20 is actually 20 however...?

You can select it but the laser itself defaults to 30 no matter what you have it set to below 30. There is a setting somewhere in the software where you can enter the min/max numbers but no matter what you set them to the laser will only allow a certain range. The number equal to the wattage determines the lowest setting, not sure about the high setting. I think you'll find that even if 200 is allowable, you don't have enough power to affect anything at that frequency.

The one thing that's escaping me is getting steel and stainless to deep engrave. I've done okay with aluminum, but still need to figure out the cleanup procedure. But steel, I can 'etch' it great- I can bright polish, get nice shades of gray, gold and brown coloring in varying surface textures and a close match to Cermark, but haven't figured out the magical "engraving" settings. I've run 60-pass test runs in several settings configurations. I either get a bright gnarly etch, or a black slaggy gnarly etch, but nothing that resembles "engraving"....

To deep engrave use 200mm speed, 100 power and 30 freq, two hatches, one at 45 and one at 135, .05mm spacing. This will remove a lot of metal fast. Do a cleanup passes at 500mm, 80 power, 60 freq. and 0 deg and 90 deg hatch. If you get too much slag then you'll either have to increase the speed or reduce the power of the first settings.

[Rodne Gold]

some stuff I messed with

I do have "wobble", which I don't believe is in the instruction manual-- been wondering what it's for? Any idea what it actually does? I've been able to get a decently dark gray in aluminum so I'll have to try it

Wobble is to give lines thickness.. say you have a hairline you want to engrave but make it 0.5mm wide , you enter the width in the wobble dialog and about 1/5th the wobble width,,



I've also figured out most of the offset settings. Yet the one I can't find is the one I really need, how to offset the outlines OUTWARD. Using negative numbers doesn't work. However, negative numbers in the "Line Reduction" setting DOES expand the hatch beyond the outline boundaries- but no way to expand the actual outline? And, I was getting weird results with the hatch, some of the fill would connect between 2 different letters (testing the word TEXT). The reason I'd like to expand the outlines? So I can match engraving done with the other lasers! Need to compensate for the extremely narrow beam...

Offset .. if you click inside the item you want offset , it offsets inside , if you click outside it , it offsets outside

I did figure out a near-perfect Cermark replica setting-- was having trouble with burning and it being too brown, and sometimes severely warping the metal.

Wash the brown off with a mild abraisive household cream and toothbrush .. it becomes black and the mark crisps up

What I did that worked great: 500 speed, 100 power, 200 freq, .01 hatch, and defocused the lens about .080 (2mm). Worked fantastic on satin stainless. However, not quite as well on a piece of polished SS. Not sure if it's focus or the material itself but some tweaking should help.

Those settings arent right.. the freq of 200 is putting in huge heat compared to 20, 500 is too fast
high freqs work less aggressively than low .... try 100-200 / 100 / 20.. you should see a bright light and sparks when doing black SS

I've also got the rotary *somewhat* figured out, had 2 hours of typing about that disappear on me the other night --

The one thing that's escaping me is getting steel and stainless to deep engrave. I've done okay with aluminum, but still need to figure out the cleanup procedure. But steel, I can 'etch' it great- I can bright polish, get nice shades of gray, gold and brown coloring in varying surface textures and a close match to Cermark, but haven't figured out the magical "engraving" settings. I've run 60-pass test runs in several settings configurations. I either get a bright gnarly etch, or a black slaggy gnarly etch, but nothing that resembles "engraving"....

You dont have enough power for deep engraving with your lens set .. if you had to say reduce the marking field to 50mm , you would get a smaller spot size and maybe have the energy density to remove material

Will this thing replace several machines? Hardly! While it can do some things my other machines do, It actually won't be able to replace any of them. However, it WILL do things none of my other machines can do. So it's simply a needed addition! --another step forward in my technology cycle... (just had to get that in there)
Its a fascinating toy to play with