Getting More Power and Cutting Accuracy Out of Your Home Bui

[dirktheeng]

Unfortunately the DXF doesn't put the cutout on a different layer, but luckily it is a continuous profile that can easily be selected by itself.

Here I did two versions. The only difference is that I nearly cut through with my "scoring" marks (you can see pinholes of light through the piece whereever two of the marking lines intersect). Even the one on the right (where you can see the lines look "lighter" and there's less discoloration) I could have used even less power. They're sitting on a scrap of the same plywood so you can judge the level of discoloration.

P1000169.JPG

P1000170.JPG

Thanks for doing that Ben. I didn't have time to get to that today with the quick Arduino PPI demo I wanted to do. This is fairly typical for vector engraving. When I did this on other projects, I had to put masking tape over the surface to keep from staining the wood it and the results came out clean

[educa]

Dirk, these babies look very nice. I do indeed see the coloration onthe front but somehow that doesn't look that bad since it gives even more 3d effect. are these 2 dragons cut with ppi? The contour looks very nice, but quite dark. the inner carvings seem quite deep, maybe this could be set a lot lighter with some ppi changes? It does all by all look quite good and I suppose your laser will also have cut this reasonably fast?

[BenJackson]

Dirk, these babies look very nice. I do indeed see the coloration onthe front but somehow that doesn't look that bad since it gives even more 3d effect. are these 2 dragons cut with ppi? The contour looks very nice, but quite dark. the inner carvings seem quite deep, maybe this could be set a lot lighter with some ppi changes? It does all by all look quite good and I suppose your laser will also have cut this reasonably fast?

Bart,

I cut those (even though Dirk volunteered). I agree about the 3d effect. I have actually found wood to be a nice material for cuts like that because of the dark edges making the design "pop". Both of those were done with PPI. The cutouts are 500 PPI and the "carving" is 250 (and much faster) but probably still to much as you point out.

I think the darkness of that wood is just due to that plywood. Some of the discoloration is probably also due to the particular glue that it uses. Different plywoods react quite differently to the laser. I've tried several kinds and I still haven't really found anything I like (although some I really *dis*like).

As to speed I didn't try to optimize it (like you might for production). Most of the time is in the details (there are 140 carving lines) and I could have gone much higher on the speed for those.

[educa]

Ben, thank you very much for testing this out. it gives a good impression of whats possible.

on my cnc router its very hard to test with 0.20mm milling bits so I didn't dare totest but this is clearly a job for laser.

I drew these 2 animals myself after an example image, but the tracing was line per line by hand.

In my case I,ll mostly be cutting in birchwood and mdf.

the carvings cound even be done with engraving and then cutting out the contours. the possibilities are almost endless.

thanks again.

Bart