Benbox Laser Machines/CO2 Lasers/3D Printers

The glass appears to be frosted by the laser. It is tough for me to see if any residual mirror material is still adhered to the glass. Have tried at to different power settings with no visual difference. Perhaps it is time to develop a test "test" pattern like Ralph uses on wood. Etch the speed and laser power with different width lines. Perhaps the text itself would be enough.

Going to cost me another $100 in materials. Wife wants one on a larger beveled edge format.
 

Was that a 2.5W laser?

I went to "Michaels for Men" and bought some small mirrors with the intent of etching. Questions:

  1. What power settings?
  2. Etching with fine lines ok?
  3. Are the etched surfaces smooth or glazed?
  4. OK to paint? If ok, what cleaner & paint?

"(and safe)" - you forget which corner of the world he is in!!!

We get a 90% discount on domestic orders so they can markup the exports to Australia.

White paper is not a good medium for diode lasers. It reflects rather than absorbs the energy. My 5.5W unit will burn white paper but  the 1.6W does absolutely nothing. I typically use neon colored 3x5 index cards available from most stationary stores for testing. Cost about $2.50US for 100 and they change color with relatively low pow laser beam. Next up is scrap wood. With rectangles you get an indication of burn with and against the grain and how rigid your frame is.

Almost everyone on this forum experienced difficulties getting started. Most of us overcame the limitations and found a useful tool. I bought the laser to cut 3mm plastic parts for robots. A forum user posted success etching slate. The plastic parts are yet to be cut but I have etched at least 100 slate coasters. Doing a bunch tonight with military emblems to give away at a local veterans home.

I am also using grbl-1.f and experiencing odd behaviors. In particular, if I send a rounded rectangle with G03 arcs it appears to do the first two ok and then skips the last two. It does return to the origin. Changing the gcode to regular rectangle and/or running grbl-9 works ok. This is with Grblcontroller.

Can anyone explain the magic sequence to enable "weak laser" when in laser mode? I suspect I could:

1. Switch in and out of laser mode
2. Issue a really slow x/y motion command.
3. Write a new M0x function to enable the laser

Please tell more about the brass powder process.