Just curious to hear thoughts on these tests. I finally got my machine up and running and figuring out the basics of how to use it. I did some tests in cast acrylic. The image below is a close up of an engraved rectangle that is 3.5mm wide with a scan gap of .254 or 100 dpi. It appears that there is a very slight amount of backlash in the machine on the x axis. Each line is slightly staggered. A measurement of each line leads me to believe the spot size of the laser is about .1mm or .004".
1.jpg
If I turned off the bidirectional option I got the following where the staggering disappeared...
Screenshot 2016-01-01 17.14.01.jpg
Here is a more zoomed out image of the first picture...
Screenshot 2016-01-01 17.21.45.jpg
This is the test image I used. The rectangle above is right next to it.
Screenshot 2016-01-01 17.22.46.jpg
And here's an overview. The image above and the one below were both done with a .07 scan gap. I just used the .254 scan gap earlier to put some space between the scan lines. At a normal viewing distance it looks ok. But I'm wondering if I should be able to achieve better.
EDIT... thanks for helping me figure out the upload. It says "Upload files..." but it definitely doesn't look like a button!