Originally Posted by Kev Williams
(and then Rodne)....

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,,
Nice to know, can't wait to try it out-- tomorrow...

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 assume this is with the wobble? The other settings seem to affect only the hatch, not the outline...

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
They may not be 'your' right, but I did 8 of these as groomsman gifts, they all look just like this one (with a common name thankfully, lol)
-they look just as good as the results I get from the "new" Cermark, as far as "black" goes...

black1.jpgblack2.jpg
I DO need to experiment more with some other settings. I think part of the reason I pulled it off at these settings was being out of focus, I was hoping to reduce the cut and heat a bit.

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
Oh, yes it is! And with Gary's help, I was able to get a solid .003" deep in some steel bar stock tonight in 12 passes...
metal1.jpgmetal2.jpg --good ol' silly putty
I'm having ruffled edge issues, hoping to work those out with some practice. I'm sure part of the problem is the long lens. I'm sure some of those hatch offsets will help. Just wish I had more TIME to practice, my work load lately has kept me working 17/7 for a solid month now, looking for a break in the action.... could have worse problems.