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Dave Rawn
09-19-2005, 5:06 PM
Just wondering :confused: if any other laser owners cut 1/8 baltic on a regular basis. If so would you share your setting. I would like to know how mine compare with others. I have a legend 75 watt with a 32 inch bed.

George M. Perzel
09-19-2005, 6:39 PM
Hi Dave;
I have a 60 watt Laserpro Mercury and cut a lot of 1/8 baltic- I use speed 0f 5% (100% is 60 inches per second) and Power level of 80% at 300 dpi and 150 ppi. It is worthwile noting that, when cutting most woods, increasing the power to 100% won't let me cut any faster but produces more charring. Speed appears to be more critical than the power level when cutting wood.
George

Dave Rawn
09-20-2005, 4:08 PM
Hi George

Thanks for the reply. I tried your settings only at a higher speed this morning and did not get good results. It just barely cut through the plywood and a lot of places it did not cut all the way. The setting that I normaly use are 2500ppi with 100% power at a speed of 43%. With this load of plywood I have had to drop the speed down to 40% to make it cut all the way thru. The dpi only has an effect when you are raster engraving something. I have found that plywood :( is about the worst thing to cut there are no two sheets the same. It would be nice if I could adjust the speed and power on the fly it would solve a lot of problems with the plywood. May be Epilog will add that feature in the next set of drivers:) .

Linda Tetreault
09-20-2005, 7:19 PM
Dave,
I have an Epilog Mini 35watt, I cut 1/8 & 1/4 constantly.

1/8 = raster 30 speed, 80 power, vector 10 speed 100 power, freq 5000

1/4 = vector 10 speed 100 power, freq 5000

I just finished a stack 4 ft high of 1/4", 12/18 sheets & had maybe 3 pieces that didn't because of glue spots.

With a 75watt you shouldn't have any trouble at all.

Linda

Dave Rawn
09-21-2005, 12:16 PM
Hi Linda

Just wondering why you have the freq so high. I cut at 2500 and get good results

Linda Tetreault
09-21-2005, 5:14 PM
Dave,

I used the mfgr's suggestion, but I'll try 2500 & see what happens. When I started cutting the ply, it worked, so I didn't fix it!

Linda

Joe Pelonio
09-21-2005, 7:33 PM
I cut that all the time, Epilog 24TT 45 watts, using 25sp 100 pwr 500 freq.
The only trouble I had once was with some wood someone brought in that was a veneer with what turned out to be solid mahogany core, that stuff would just
burn (flame) and cut just thru the outer surface.

Dave Rawn
09-22-2005, 11:17 AM
I thought I would show you some of the defects in the 1/8" Baltic that I have had to deal with. As I said each sheet is different with the amount of defects some sheets are really good with no defects. I sanded off the top layer of the wood to show you what the middle ply has in it. They are mostly knots and voids the knots are as hard as steel and the voids scatters the beam. In both cases the cut was not made all the way thru. I tryed using 500 freq this morning with no apparent difference in the cutting I will try some different setting this afternoon if I get time.

Joe Pelonio
09-22-2005, 2:25 PM
That's your problem, I get the wood from a woodworking store in
Seattle called Rockler and bought several sheets 12"x48" one day
when they were on special at $10 each. This stuff has is veneer but
has a solid birch core. I don't know any way around the problem of
knots or voids.

www.rockler.com (http://www.rockler.com/)