Cermark speed increase

[Chris Toshack]

Just wanted to get some input for cermark on metals. So far I have found that a speed of 100 mm/sec and a power level of 35% gives me a decent output. Is it safe to say if I double my speed and power I should get the same or similar results.

Thunder Laser Nova 35 100w

[Mike Null]

Not necessarily. Your premise may give you problems particularly on thin metals.

[John Lifer]

Ive an 80 watt and i use settings of 225mm/s and 65% power so, in short, you should be good. Be careful and start a little low, i can warp a yetiat about 70% power. I thin better to top out power and vary your speed a bit.

[Ross Moshinsky]

0 experience with a Chinese laser, but by the numbers, you should run Cermark at 500 mm/sec and about 40W of power. Scan gap should be the equivalent of 500-600dpi.

Also, application is important with Cermark. It should be a thin application. Thick application just causes problems.

[John Lifer]

Well Russ, it wont stick to stainless with my laser at over 250mm/s. Others might do better. This is where US lasers tend to shine fast engraving! I use 0.08 usually for scan gap. Waste of time smaller and streaky at 0.1. And I went back and I have been running some at even slower, 150mm/s and 60%. Thin with no streaks on application.

[Kev Williams]

Best results I get with my Triumph is at 130mm/sec and about 33% power (my 33% comes to about 50 watts worth).

I can go faster, but Cermark needs 'soak' time to fuse sufficiently to the metal. A quick blast with lots of power just doesn't do the job.

Another factor with DC glass lasers, is the slow rise time it takes them to reach full power. When running fast across short spans the laser can be off at the end of the mark before it ever gets to full power, but this is no problem across longer spans. This problem shows up big time with Cermark. The cheesy graphic below pretty much shows the problem I kept getting when trying to run at 300+mm/sec.-- If I adjusted the power to get the long spans to engrave nicely, the short spans would wipe off. But if I got the short spans to engrave nicely, the long spans would roast the Cermark. The char can be wiped off when it's overburnt, but the mark is a bronze-ish dark gray, which doesn't match the nice black mark on the short areas. So either way, it plain looks stupid

overburn.jpg

--so the solution is to simply run slow enough to let the Cermark evenly soak. Which is around 100-130mm/second!


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[Keith Downing]

My experience is 200 mm/s and 80% power (for my 60 Watt) is about right.

I have also found settings that work well in the 100-150 mm/s range, but why would you want to run slower if you're getting the same good results running at the faster speed and more power?!? It can shave 20%+ off of your work time if you go with the higher ratio (as long as it works well on your machine). That's a lot of time saved if you're running a large batch.

Just my $.02

Oh, and I always recommend adequate air! I've never warped a piece since I started upping the air to 25-30psi. Same settings without the air and you can usually see a little bit of bend in the metal if you're doing a large black area.

[John Lifer]

I curled up a piece of 20 thou aluminum when i first started trying cermark. Kind of funny, and it didn't stick well either!