Resolution problem on Shenhui G350 Laser

[Christian Soto]

I am using a Shenhui G350 50W laser, 100mm speed, 30PW (min &max)

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I hope this is the right forum to post this question. Why am I getting jagged edges, unfinished letters (the o in Nicole), and bad resolution in the date section? Please help I have tried to align the mirrors and I get a small dot at the end (pulse fire) but it seems that I cannot get the mirrors to fire at the same spot from Mirror 1 to Mirror 3 (using the tape reference points). Do I need to adjust my speed and or power? Thanks in advance!

- Chris

[Ross Moshinsky]

Increase your scan gap to .05. Increase your power. Increase your speed. Your laser is slow already. Run it at 500mm/sec and 45W of power. You may have to run a little slower than 500mm/sec but not that much slower. That should take care of the laser settings side.

If that doesn't fix it, it's most likely the laser head shaking while engraving. Check to see how tight everything is.

[George M. Perzel]

Hi Chris;
You are running at 30% power? Thats 15 watts on your 50 watt tube. You are nearing the lower working limits on the Shenhui.
Try uping the power to about 85% and 200 mm speed.
No easy answer on the mirror alignment-just gotta tweak and test, tweak and test. Make sure your laser head is perpendicular to the table. The Shenhui mounting system is not the most rigid and can easily be bumped out of alignment.
Good Luck
Best Regards,
George
Laserarts

[Christian Soto]

Thanks guys I will try both approaches and see what works. Great advice, I just started doing this thinking it was a piece of cake but in reality there's a steep learning curve to it but I enjoy it. I will post pictures of the results soon. Thanks again!

- Chris

[Rodne Gold]

check the backlash settings , you need to tune the laser for bi directional engraving

[Christian Soto]

I am still having trouble with jagged edges. I first tried adjusting the settings to 85% power 200mm speed but got similar results. Then I tried 500mm speed with both 45 and 85 power with same jagged edges.

Ross, where can I find the gap settings on the Laserworks software? I double click the job for the setting to pop-up but cannot find an option for scan gap. There is an interval setting at the bottom set to 0.10 is this what you meant?

I also selected the backlash setting under the output tab. But this caused the machine to give me a "not enough space, press esc to continue" warning. Does anyone have a clue on how to proceed? Thanks so much for your help guys, I greatly appreciate your time.

- Chris

UPDATED: Does it matter if the image on LaserWorks is blurry? I convert the image size according to the product dimensions (bamboo coaster). So the image is absolute on the size I need it to engrave but when I import it onto LaserWorks the image is blurry. I do not mess with the image or any table settings just adjust the speed and power as well as what was mentioned above (check backlash). Still getting jagged edges and burning when the laser is initially starting to engrave the rounded top.

[Pete James]

I assume that the file is a raster (bitmap) format. If so, yes it will get blurry when you enlarge it. How blurry depends on the resolution dpi of the file in the original size and how much you enlarged the image. If you are going to use a bitmap file (like jpg, png, etc.), you need to start with a high resolution image - minimum 300dpi and higher is better. If it were me, I would redraw the art as a vector and then you do not have to worry about the resolution when you change size. If you have good trace software, perhaps you can get a clean vector file running the art thru it.

[Christian Soto]

Sorry for the late reply but Pete was right. It was a jpeg or raster pixelated image rather than a vector. The problem is that pixelized images such as bitmaps, jpegs, and png's lose quality as they are resized (become "pixelated"). A vectored image does not lose quality when it is resized and can be achieved through adobe illustrator or coreldraw. I use coreldraw x5 and usually design my images on photoshop, save it as a jpeg, convert the jpeg to a vectored image, and finally import it into laserworks v8. I resize the image to suit my engraving needs and when I hit start and it finishes, the engraved image comes out perfect and in great quality. I hope this helps other people starting out like I was when I first made this post.