My 2.5W diode had been performing poorly. Replaced it with a 3.5W that has a much larger forcus point. Been doing mostly cutting so switched back to 2.5W. Todaty I wanted to do an etch and did the test burns on cardboard. Came out horrible. Any horizontal lines that were less than 3 pixels wide wide either very faded on just not there. Put the 3.5 back in and repeated test. Again not very good. Did some test cutting and both diodes behaved as expected. Did some test etching and both misbehaved.
This is with grbl-1.1f with laser mode enabled. Looked at the gcode and the speeds are not changing when doing the horizontal line so I don't think it is related to acceleration.
Wondering if grbl with laser mode on always mucks with the laser power.
Current thoungths:
1. Disable laser mode.
2. Change the gcode generator such that it only emits a Fxxx on a change in speed.
3. Lower both the power and the speed.
Any other?




Attached is the image that I am trying to etch. If anyone does etch please post you results. On my fixture I am burning at a 0.1mm resolution so this image is 110x110mm.