t2_gsmap2 burnt

[donwatson]

Hi Zax,
I have burnt the t2_gsmap2.nc on a piece of 1/8" ply and this is the result. I will burn again on the same piece of ply tomorrow and will raise the ply 1/8" as I think that was the setting I had originally on this machine ie 1/4" above the platten.
I am pleased to be using this setup again and hope to get up to speed soon. I think it looks ok for a start but I misplaced it on the wood and have overburn at bottom right. Tomorrow should see an improvement.
Don W

[Zax]

It looks good, you would expect some burning at lower feed rate on this type of material.

[donwatson]

Hi Zax,
I have just burnt the t2_gsmap.nc and it turned out a bit better (I think). I raised the the ply an 1/8" to bring it up as I think the beam was focused at 1/4" above the platten. I still don't know if the beam is focused, is there any way or any programme that I could use to focus the beam. I will have a trawl through the forum and see what I can find.
Don W

[Zax]

Turn the laser on at low power using the manual laser controls and adjust the lens to focus, should be very easy to see. There are other techniques, you can use the pulse time and burn a dot, then move a little, adjust the focus and repeat - looking to get the smallest spot possible in most cases. Using a short line is also another method, you can do that in Sketch but I find just using low power and adjusting is easiest.

[donwatson]

Thanks Zax,
I will get this sorted later this morning, after that I will have a play with work on setting up a picture for engraving.
Don W

[donwatson]

Hi Zax,
I had a go yesterday at the greyscale tests and have attached the pics. I had a look at setting the beam focus but a half turn of the ring didn't produce any difference that I could see. The light is like a little bar rather than a dot but seems to burn ok.
Pic 3 is the greyscale t2_gsmap.nc and I reckon that is pretty good. Pic 4 is the greyscale in the Sample menu at 1000 mm/min and 0.2 resolution and the last pic, Pic 6 is the same burn with 2000 mm/min. I am beginning to see what is happening here and it is a combination of the speed and the power controlled by the GCode that produces the burn.
I am going to pick up a post that George made and have a discussion with him

@ggallant571, I saw what you said in the other post about layers and that made me think of using Inkscape/Gimp to burn pictures in layers. It would be laborious to do by hand but I must have a look at how it's done. Thanks for the spark.

take care
Don W