I'm finally ready to be a guinea pig!

[Jacob John]

I finally did it. I found a Tykma 20 watt SPI/Vereo MOPA and pulled the trigger. It arrives on Tuesday and I couldn't be more stoked. Going to have a lot to learn but I'm excited to be joining the fray.

Any tips on learning hatching?

[Bryan Rocker]

Put the eggs under a heat lamp?

[Bill George]

Hatching is a tough one, SO many different ways to use. Trial and error, keep a log book on all the materials you try it on. Search on here will bring up some help, but its a lot of experience thing.

[John Lifer]

New machine? Appears they have updated their software in the past few months. Was originally based on EzCad, and they were able to change some stuff, but while looking a while back, an updated version was a LOT different.
Now might have been just for a different fiber as they offer a lot of different machines, but let us know..... get their pdf book and it will help you understand the hatching better. Links been posted several times here lately.

Go out and get a bunch of scrap metal, aluminum, steel, whatever, that will be similar to what you are going to use it on. And get to playing with it! Oh, the more I use mine, especially on logos and converted vector files, the more I understand they should be really clean of extraneous stuff. Makes a big difference on it hatching right or skipping areas. good files make for good engravings.

[Jacob John]

New machine? Appears they have updated their software in the past few months. Was originally based on EzCad, and they were able to change some stuff, but while looking a while back, an updated version was a LOT different.
Now might have been just for a different fiber as they offer a lot of different machines, but let us know..... get their pdf book and it will help you understand the hatching better. Links been posted several times here lately.

Go out and get a bunch of scrap metal, aluminum, steel, whatever, that will be similar to what you are going to use it on. And get to playing with it! Oh, the more I use mine, especially on logos and converted vector files, the more I understand they should be really clean of extraneous stuff. Makes a big difference on it hatching right or skipping areas. good files make for good engravings.

Very lightly used one (under 50 confirmed hours use). I appreciate the advice, I'll grab a bunch of scrap to practice on. I can't wait to start. The Speedy 300 is my wife's baby, and this one will be mine.

[Bill George]

Very lightly used one (under 50 confirmed hours use). I appreciate the advice, I'll grab a bunch of scrap to practice on. I can't wait to start. The Speedy 300 is my wife's baby, and this one will be mine.

Looks like a beautiful machine, have fun and you will!

[Jacob John]

Looks like a beautiful machine, have fun and you will!

Thanks Bill!

[Jacob John]

So I'm getting it tomorrow! Any tips/tricks on settings? I see that Tykma has a pdf with some limited settings, but does anyone have a more robust reference, or anyone willing to share their own?

I'm hoping I can easily pick up how to set it to mark vs engrave vs etch. Anywhere to suggest starting there too?