New 50w Fiber Laser

[Tim Bateson]

Interesting-- so, what's your table's current workspace in EZcad? - top of the screen, click the wrench next to the hatch H button, then hit workspace- It can be anything the user enters, I'm just curious if it's set for 150 or 100-ish..

109.98 - Does this need to be changed for the different lens? What about parameter/Field Size?

How long your focus stick may be a clue, mine is almost exactly 9-3/4" long- if your lens is a 150 yours should be pretty close to the same length. If you have a 100-ish lens its stick will be quite a bit shorter--

f=160 stick=164.5mm (6.5")
f=254 stick=300mm (11.8")

[Kev Williams]

Your 6.5" focus, the 110mm workspace, and able to blaze thru aluminum like butter means that's definitely a 110 lens!

>>disclaimer<<, all of the following is mostly conjecture as I've never changed a lens!

As for changing the workspace and parameter field size, even though I've never changed a lens I'm assuming yes on both accounts. Above I stated the max my machine will engrave/redlight was almost exactly 160mm.. And 160mm is what my field size is set to. At this maximum, I get 3 perfect corners but the top-left corner about 1/8" of the corner each direction is missing, so either the lens is at it's max or the mirrors have moved beyond the point the red laser even hits them. I changed the field size, up and down, and this doesn't change the max size of the square. Also-- I just now checked the HEIGHT/Y-axis of the square, which I didn't do yesterday, and it measures almost a dead-on 6-5/8, which is 167.3mm, so it seems the mirrors have a bit more 'reach' in the Y axis...

So for field size, my assumption is, the user draws or engraves as large a square as possible, then measures the shortest side, then enters the size as the field size. I'm also assuming this number should be accurate because it may be the basis for the engraving size calculations... the mirrors will move much less distance to engrave a 1" square with a 254mm lens than they will with a 110mm lens. I would plan on needing to tweak the new lens for red-light and engraving accuracy. Not sure if there's a way to save current settings for the old lens- me, I take a screenshot of all settings and save them (been doing this with Gravostyle for years)

As for table size, I think it's more a 'user' thing and not all that critical- mine came set at 150, even though it will reach to 160mm. I guess it's 'cushion' to allow for adjustments, a little boundary overage, and to avoid goofy optical issues at the lens's and/or mirror's limits. I have to wonder why yours is set at 109.98-- why not just 110, the difference is .0008"... ?

Anyway, someone who's actually changed lenses would probably be more help than me!

[Tim Bateson]

First paying job on this beast. It is engraving to about .005 15 times faster than my 30w gantry fiber. To be honest, it's actually going deeper and much cleaner.

[John Lifer]

Aint it fun! Did an anniversary gun this morning. Sig p226 on both sides of the slide about a thousandth or two deep I just a couple of minutes takes me more time to set up and make sure settings are right and hatches are correct than to do engraving. Kev, I've got two lenses and the vendor sent a list of settings for each. No way to save them you just have to change them. I keep my larger on most of the time. I need to do some testing to see if what I thought I saw is true, that smaller lens passes more power thru

[Tim Bateson]

...I need to do some testing to see if what I thought I saw is true, that smaller lens passes more power thru

Correct - The closer you are to the object the more power you have to apply. You loose power the father away which equates to the larger the lens the further your focal length is away & the more poer that is being lost. The big gain is in work area. If you don'r need a huge amount of power, but could use a larger work area, go with a larger lense.

[Kev Williams]

Kev, I've got two lenses and the vendor sent a list of settings for each. No way to save them you just have to change them.

The program doesn't save the settings, YOU do

-- I have notepad lists on all my computers to help me remember everything from logins to post processor settings for my 30 year old machines to the XY offset adjustments in the fiber ...that's how I "save" settings, sorry for the confusion!

The only thing you should have to change when changing lenses is the Field Size in the F3 parameters, yes?

Lens focus on these machines works exactly like those on our C02 machines;
the shorter the focal length, the higher the angle of the incident beam between the lens and the focused beam spot,
the longer the focal length, the narrower the beam...
As the beam angle increases, the focused spot size decreases, and the smaller the spot, the higher the power density.
--and vice versa--

the tradeoff is the same too, the smaller the focal length and spot, the shorter the usable focus distance; longer lengths, more focus range, much more forgiving...

[Neville Stewart]

Tim, you've probably figured this out by now, but if you want a smoother floor to your engraved recess, Id tighten up the hatch, and use the "interrupted" hatch selection but Id also run a third hatch with a higher frequency at an opposing angle to smooth roughness of the other two passes.

I am still trying to find the right settings. You seen in another thread that I still am trying to figure out EzCad2 as well. Deep engraving is the first thing I'm working on as that was one of the driving reasons for buying it. I am still trying to develop a good set of parameters. Not much online in the way of a 50w to help. Haven't even attempted to Mark anything or use the rotary.

I got both an f160 (150mm) & an f254 (180mm) lens. So far have only used the standard f160. They give you an aluminum stick for each to set the focus. Are these dead on... again haven't yet done the testing to see if they are perfectly sized.

These are an M&P 45 slide - engraved much deeper than I had intended, but turned out good, and a test piece of aluminum - engraved deeper than my gantry style fiber could ever dream of engraving..

[Ross San]

since I&#39;ve never really tried to engrave as deep as you did that aluminum sample, I was curious --wondered what this machine would do do in twice the time with 60% of your power and using a &#39;colder&#39; 150mm lens... Attachment 367192Attachment 367193 This measures just under .030&quot; deep, and took 22 minutes-- the entire logo is the size of a nickel. Hatch was .040 &#39;fast hatch&#39;, auto rotated, did exactly 100 passes... With my lesser power and longer lens the aluminum isn&#39;t melting down much at all-- I think if you change your lens and get your settings dialed in you should be able to match that in about 12 minutes...

Kev Williams - Would you minding sharing a screen shot of the different hatch settings you mentioned above? I just got a machine and have been messing with it but I don&#39;t understand what all the different hatch options are yet.

[Gary Hair]

Kev Williams - Would you minding sharing a screen shot of the different hatch settings you mentioned above? I just got a machine and have been messing with it but I don&#39;t understand what all the different hatch options are yet.

Download the manual at this link and search for hatch - there is a good section on hatch, including a description of the different types and what makes them different. http://en.bjjcz.com/downloadsfront.d...c-f54067bcfd36

[John Lifer]

The Tykma manual will help too. link's been posted several times.

[Tim Bateson]

The Tykma manual will help too. link's been posted several times.

...for smaller fibers. I think it's good for maybe a 20w. Not much help for anything larger.

[John Lifer]

Tim, my comment was more for him understanding the hatches. Not necessarily power settings. But you are quite right. 20-30watt max for the power.