Tips for Engraving large areas?

[Terence Christian]

Does anyone have any tips for engraving large areas. We run a Morntech1290 (80w Reci) and the maximum speed we can seem to run is 250mm/s and 120mm/s for fine details. any faster and the engraving becomes almost blurry.
So engaving an item 150mmx100mm can take up to 20 minutes, is this normal?
We try to encourage clients to rather 'cut' the outlines as it works out quicker and thus cheaper.

Any tips would be apprectaited

[Dave Sheldrake]

A shorter focal length lens will help with fine details (the spot is smaller and higher power density) 20 minutes seems about right...what scan gap are you using?

cheers

Dave

[Rodne Gold]

Have you set backlash compensation (assuming you are engraving bidirectional) to stop the "blurriness"

[Joe Pelonio]

Blurriness from speed can be minimized with running only half as far. in other words, you may be able to run full speed if you engrave only half the width at a time. Of course you then have to do the other side so it can end up taking longer!:(

You can ungroup and select only the fine detail, run that slower, then engrave the rest at the fast speed, and see if tyha5t ends up faster than what you are doing now.

Unless the fine detail is a requirement, you could also do .25 point outline on it and make it thicker so it engraves at the faster speed. I sometimes do that with thin vertical lines on signs with boxes around the text.

[AL Ursich]

When I got my old used Profile Laser it had 4 tapered wood wedges that after you moved the lower table to the proper position you inserted the 4 wood wedges. They helped keep the lower table from Wobbling when engraving at faster speeds.... If you have a power table you may want to make a habit of placing a piece of tape over the control while the wedges are in place.... To keep from damaging the lower table motor.

I am a old Navy Analog Computer Guy so I always think Mechanical first than Electrical... Could be your lower table is shaking....

I visited 4 places in Africa in my Navy Days... Enjoyed the tours.

AL

[Joe Hillmann]

I have Universal lasers but when estimating I figure 1 square foot takes 20 minutes.


That would be a square 304mm x 304mm.

[Terence Christian]

Rodney, i asked Joy at She. about this. How do i set that on Laserworks?

[Rodne Gold]

You go to config
then system setting
You will see two windows , one is small circle compensation (dunno what that does)
the other window is Scanning (reverse interval)
You need to add settings
You have to test to see what intervals to use at what speed
Start at 50 speed , then do a test at 150 speed and then one at 250 speed and then perhaps one higher
The software will interpolate speeds inbetween yours for perfect results

Engrave a solid rectangular block of say .5mm x 20mm
use a very high interval like 1mm

you will see this
.._____
_____
.._____
You need to set the scanning reverse interval till you see this
______
______
______

You need to test at the speeds I mentioned , the figure will change with speed

[Terence Christian]

Great Thank you all, i will give it a try, setting the backlash Rodney.