Universal Laser. VLS Series

[Mr Mike Mills]

I am trying to cut through 1/4 with vector settings. Does anyone know what settings I should use to cut through 1/4" plywood

[Yuriy Karpov]

it will depend on the sort of the plywood. They might have different glue in it and different layers. You also didn't specify what's your laser wattage.

[Kevin Groenke]

It also depends on your machine's wattage, lens length, cutting efficiency, etc. We have a test file of concentric shapes (with arcs and straight lines) in the 8 mapped colors. We cut those shapes with saved .las settings that will cut the concentric shapes in a range of speeds (10%, 15%, 20%, 25%, 30%, 35%, 40%, 45% for example). The first ring to cut through is a good place to start for optimum speed, then you tweak to get the best possible results. We have fast, medium and slow "test" .las settings: when we encounter a material we haven't cut before, we try the one that seems appropriate, dial in the settings and save the material to our library.

If you haven't already figured, plywood can be a real bear to cut. Depending on your machine's power, you're probably going to be at about 100% power, 3-5% speed, maybe 200ppi? (a lower number should result in less charring).

-kg

[Mr Mike Mills]

I have Vls 6.60. so a 60watt laser I have a 2" lens I have also installed an air asset. We usually cut through 1/4" oak ply . Some times we are using Baltic birch. What is ppi is higher better or lower better.

thanks mike

[Scott Shepherd]

Lower ppi will leave a cleaner edge in wood for vector cutting. Try 200 or so as a starting point.