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Mark Koenig
05-11-2007, 5:19 PM
Have any of you tried to engrave on poplar wood? Been having a problem getting the right color contrast verses detail... Had my best results with 65% Speed, 100% Power, @ 400 DPI... Still too light for my taste but the detail was great! Picture taken at the beach with the background deleted and rendered in grayscale...

Any ideas???

Larry Bratton
05-11-2007, 7:07 PM
Mark:
Haven't tried any poplar. I suspect what your getting in our area here is yellow poplar. I would think that engraving it at 600dpi and slow it down some. Poplar is a hardwood with some pretty mean properties. I've used it in various wood working applications over the years and as my old partner used to say "it's good wood if you can get the mean out of it" I use 45/100 with 40watts for alder. I'm sure poplar is harder, similar to oak and it is not a recommended wood for laser.
By the way, I'm in South Carolina and also have an Epilog EXT but mine is just a 40watt. Good luck!

Mark Koenig
05-11-2007, 8:09 PM
Thanks and that's what I thought... Guess I should find a source for Alder....

Mark Koenig
05-11-2007, 8:11 PM
P.S> You have some nice toys from your sig...;)

Mike Null
05-11-2007, 8:28 PM
You'll get a darker burn with 1000 dpi but sometimes that's not enough.

Mark Koenig
05-11-2007, 8:34 PM
Thanks Larry...

Your recommendation worked great but found the real problem... The Dang mirror on the X-Axis head was loose...:eek:

Have strong hands and was worried about breaking the optic during training... My fault...:rolleyes:

Thanks for you help...

Mark Koenig
05-11-2007, 8:44 PM
You'll get a darker burn with 1000 dpi but sometimes that's not enough.

I'll try that next now the optic is not floating around anymore... Details, Details...

Larry Bratton
05-12-2007, 7:48 PM
Mark:
Don't feel bad, I had the same thing to happen to me a week or so ago. I ran some alder and got some terrible looking engraving. Changed DPI and it got better but still wasn't right. We had cleaned the mirrors a couple of days before and was running this stuff again trying to figure out what was wrong and the mirror FELL OUT ON TO THE TABLE!!! Mystery solved. (my wife cleaned it and didn't get the screw tightened down on it):o

Bill Cunningham
05-12-2007, 9:59 PM
I've had reasonable luck with poplar.. This was done as an experiment into a piece of poplar ply I salvaged from a old dresser drawer..