Benbox Laser Machines/CO2 Lasers/3D Printers

My working wage is more like $0.17 / hr. I sell the slates thru a local craft shop and give away to friends, family and charities. They get $10, I get $7.50. If I sell approx 800 more I will break even on laser toys (tools) assuming I stop building fixtures and trying new media.

+5V (or 4.2) is what enables the laser. The CPU turns it OFF by pulling the line low. If the input on the laser is left floating it will be ON. There is an ongoing discussion of this issue. Simple solution is a 3.3K pull-down resistor. Also keeps the laser off during cpu reset.

I use linux with home-brew host burn application that expects the image to be imported at 254 dpi. I typically use GIMP as the  image editor. I set/scale the image to fit the target media.

For instance, when etching  slate 100x100 slate tiles I know that the max image size is 80x80 so I scale everything to 800x800 pixels. Then before exporting the image as a png file I set the canvas size to 1000x1000, center the image and erase the borders. A resolution of 0.1mm is overkill for wood and leather but great for slate and mirrors.

T2 has many more options but I have settled into a work flow that produces predicatble results.

I have purchased the components to build a 15W laser with linear slides. Two questions / concerns:

1. What do they mean by 50% duty cycle? Max PWM of 50% or run for 5 minutes and off for 5 minutes?
2. I am wondering if the HOME switch movement should be with no micro stepping to avoid the motor starting at a full step position.

It is much easier to tune a laser fixture using simple squares, circles, & triangles. I prefer the gcode versions where I specifically set the sizes, speeds and power.

Attached is a somewhat cleaner file. Made some of the wide lines thinner and some of the very thin lines wider. Etched with 2.5W laser at 1200mm/min and full power. Attached picture.

When etching slate I use a sealer. Improves the contrast. Makes the unetched surface darker. Takes a couple of days to fully dry. I also wash and scrub the slate prior to sealing. Takes time but the results reflect the effort.

Looking at your image I would guess that converting to vectors would be a waste of time and sacrifice quality. My general rules for etching are minimum line width is 2 pixels and spacing is 4 pixels. There are a number of places in the fish that do not meet these guide lines. It is all a mater of taste when dots are missing for bleed together.
 

Attached is my stab at the operation valor emblem. Currently etching on scrap wood so I don't know how it will look. I sized it to fit the 100x100 mm (4 inch) slate or mirrors. The are a number of quite fat lines that probably will not etch well in slate. If anyone does use it and does some improvements, please post your work.

Image is 254 dpi.