Newbie looking for material references

Have been lurking for a while, Sawmill Creek has been a fantastic resource, but now's time to actually participate....

Just picked up a used 35watt epilog mini and can think of about a million uses, but how do you figure out raster power/time for some of the more expensive items.. My daughter wants to customize her older macbook, (glossy white) and so I'm looking around to see what settings to use.

Is there any source out there that lists things like this, or do we just have to search the forums for someone else's experience? Could be a great topic for a stickie post in the forum?

For expensive items like notebooks, try to find an inconspicuous place to run a test grid, such as the inside of the battery cover. Be careful, however, as the material coating may be different between the inside and outside.

Bruce, some ideas for you from one of my customers:
http://www.laserex.ru/index.php?opti...112&Itemid=134
BUT BE EXTREMELY CAREFULL :( I still can't forgot story from another customer, who was pushed buy $300 watches after he did bad engraving on it :(

Bruce,
Run a test grid if possible, if not, run at high speed and low power on the first run. If you don't get a mark then try higher power. You can always laser again but you can't put material back if you start too high. Kind of like the board I cut twice that was still too short...

Gary

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Originally Posted by Bruce Clumpner

Have been lurking for a while, Sawmill Creek has been a fantastic resource, but now's time to actually participate....

Just picked up a used 35watt epilog mini and can think of about a million uses, but how do you figure out raster power/time for some of the more expensive items.. My daughter wants to customize her older macbook, (glossy white) and so I'm looking around to see what settings to use.

Is there any source out there that lists things like this, or do we just have to search the forums for someone else's experience? Could be a great topic for a stickie post in the forum?

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Did you not get a manual with it? If not, download a manual from Epilog and it will have a table of suggested settings in it for various wattages. These settings are a good starting point and most of them work pretty well. Just got to their website and look for the downloads section. Testing as previously suggested is good when possible.

I'll look at putting together a test grid and test in some out of the way places on the laptop....

If you're doing 1-off, 1-chance things like daughter's laptops, start off light. You can always re-burn again, raising the power/dropping the speed if you don't make a mark.