Cutting MDF on a Speedy 300

[Steve Crawford]

I'm making some items from MDF on my 80w Speedy 300 (which reads 89w in fact). It's a bit of a pain to work with as the nozzle gets gummed up very quickly, but that's not why I'm posting. I'm cutting 6mm MDF sheet, and in order to do it I have to set the machine for four passes at 100% power, 1.8 speed, so obviously as it's an intricate pattern this is quite slow. I also want my finished product to be a 12mm thickness, so at present I'm cutting two of each and glueing them together, which is time consuming.

Is anyone cutting 12mm or so MDF with a Speedy 300 and what settings are you using? Should I consider getting a more powerful laser installed... Does anyone know, if it would make much of a difference if I could upgrade to say 120w?

tia...

[Tony saunders]

I've cut 12mm MDF on my 80W Speedy 400 - usually one pass - P100 S0.18 - that's with a 2.0" lens

If you've got a 4.0" lens you'll find you get a better edge but it will likely not be as straight as a CNC cut - for us it doesn't matter.

As a point of interest, I recently I got a lovely cut through 15mm kiln dried European Oak. Surprised me actually what the Trotec can do if you play with speeds n feeds! :)

EDITED - You mentioned an intricate pattern - don't quite know how 'intricate' it is, but if you've got lots of cuts within a 1-4 mm of each other you may find you get too much charring. If you've got a vacuum bed (I know you won't need it to hold the material), but it can cause fine edges to start glowing so I'd be tempted to switch it off.

Also, if you've got a lot of close cuts it is worth using colour settings for cuts so that it doesn't cut all cuts adjacent to each other. This give the material time to locally cool.

T

[Tony saunders]

Steve,
Just to explain my last post ref: heat build up. If you set your material settings to a number of colours - all with the identical Power and Speed to cut the material, and ensure that close curves / elements in your design are not the same cutting colour, there will be less localised heat build up in the material... hope that makes sense :)
T



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[Steve Crawford]

Thanks Tony, that all makes perfect sense... I'll try that out with the colours.