Purchase update and questions

[James Walker]

Hi everyone. A few months back I posted a question about a Rayfine 30 MOPA fiber laser purchase. Thanks to the help from this board and from the search function, I went ahead with the purchase. No real problems in getting it here or getting it set up. There were adjustments that needed made but with tech support it went easily. I have 30 years background in CNC machining so a lot of this comes easier than normally expected. I am starting a medical bracelet and pendant company that will sell from a website only I posted a picture of one of my products and my first laser try which will be used as a product sample once refined and photo edited for the website. First I want to thank all that helped me in the purchase decision and process. Even those that have posted there experiences in other posts help someone new and it is much appreciated. I intend to become a contributor to the site.

I have the JPT Mopa 30 M1 +S laser and this is my result with 1 pass at 300speed _90%power - 100freq and 200pulse. I would like it to be a richer black. Can anyone recommend settings to improve. The material is 304 stainless steel. Also I have these plates in a black colored 304 stainless steel and I want a rich white mark. Can anyone recommend a starting place to get a nice white? Thank you in advance.

[Kev Williams]

concerning annealing...

From what I've read in the little bit of research I've done: How dark a mark you're going to get is largely dependent on the carbon content of the metal. This would be because 'annealing' with a fiber laser means you're oxidizing the carbon at the surface of the metal... more carbon, more oxidation, and vice versa--

and from personal experience, another factor is the mass of the metal you're annealing. I recently annealed 40 stainless disks, they're 304, 5/8" diameter, .028" thick. Try as I did, I couldn't get them as dark as your sample, even though a good size piece of 304 will go quite dark. All I could get was a medium dark mark that had brown or purple hues depending on the light angle. I've determined, *to my own satisfaction*, that all other things being equal, the size/mass of the object is a factor due to heat dissipation. My conclusion, is that small objects lose heat too quickly for nice, dark carbon oxidation to take place. Trying to add heat via more laser power proved counterproductive as annealing stops and engraving begins...

That all said, this strictly pertains to me and my little 30w non-MOPA fiber -- having many more settings at your disposal may prove helpful in getting a darker mark.

As to getting white, or "bright" in my case, I like 1500s 50% power (of 30w) and 75 freq... also, ONE angled hatch, .02mm, tight...

[James Walker]

Thank you for the explanation on annealing Kev. With what you said about the carbon really explains why a piece of tool steel that I did came out really dark and looked really good. Lots to learn here but the principals parallel machining. I will try your settings to get a white mark.

[Gary Hair]

How long did that take to mark James?

Hi everyone. A few months back I posted a question about a Rayfine 30 MOPA fiber laser purchase. Thanks to the help from this board and from the search function, I went ahead with the purchase. No real problems in getting it here or getting it set up. There were adjustments that needed made but with tech support it went easily. I have 30 years background in CNC machining so a lot of this comes easier than normally expected. I am starting a medical bracelet and pendant company that will sell from a website only I posted a picture of one of my products and my first laser try which will be used as a product sample once refined and photo edited for the website. First I want to thank all that helped me in the purchase decision and process. Even those that have posted there experiences in other posts help someone new and it is much appreciated. I intend to become a contributor to the site.

I have the JPT Mopa 30 M1 +S laser and this is my result with 1 pass at 300speed _90%power - 100freq and 200pulse. I would like it to be a richer black. Can anyone recommend settings to improve. The material is 304 stainless steel. Also I have these plates in a black colored 304 stainless steel and I want a rich white mark. Can anyone recommend a starting place to get a nice white? Thank you in advance.

[James Walker]

Hi Gary. It took 13 seconds. I was counting thousand ones in my head while it marked so not exact time but pretty close.

[Bert McMahan]

James, do you mind if I asked how much you paid for your laser, with shipping/extras/etc? I've been considering getting one myself. If you don't want to post publicly, maybe a PM?

Anyway, as to not derail the thread. Would it help to either put a heatsink under the part you're engraving, or alternatively an insulator? Just to try playing around with heat retention vs. dissipation. I don't know if you can remove those tags from the bracelet or not.

[Tim Bateson]

Did you out of focus it? I get my best Annulling by putting out .90 out of focus.

[James Walker]

Hi Bert I will reply to you in a PM on cost. I will play with putting the part on a heatsink but I think to make that work you would have to machine a heatsink with the exact profile to maximize surface contact so that the heat would have a passage. Just placing on a copper plate would not offer enough contact area to transfer the heat. The plates easily come off the bracelets and that is how I will mark them so that I can place on a fixture. My plan is to make all fixtures to position the parts at the same focal position so that refocus would not be needed between different parts. I have flat dog tags that I will use as my base position and then a fixture for the curved plates will be made so that the difference between the lowest and the highest point on the bracelet will be the same as the top of the flat dog tag. On that plate I had to workshift the Z 3mm to get it to mark evenly. So when I make the fixture for this bracelet I will raise the top of the part 3MM higher than a dog tag so then it can be cut with no Z axis movement. My machine has autofocus but I don't intend to use it for every part.

[James Walker]

Hi Tim. I marked it 3mm out of focus. At perfect focus to the top it did not mark on the ends very well. I also marked it on perfect center and wonder if I will get better results with off center marking? I will have about 20 - 30 different parts and want to make it easy to just center the text in EZCAD and have all of the fixtuers be in perfect alignment when put against a corner stop. I am hoping that on center marking gives the best results and I only need to off center fixture the gold plated ones.

[James Walker]

Bert I sent you a PM with the price. I could not attach a photo of the machine in the PM so I posted it here. It included the JPT MOPA 30W Laser, Auto Focus, Cyclops System, Cabinet and Cover, Rotary, Adjustable table, a spare lens. I had them quote it door to door shipped FedEx. FedEx acted as the Agent and it all went very smoothly.

IMG_0669.jpg

[Kev Williams]

Just me, but I haven't found out of focus to work any better.

As for a heatsink, in my experience it's counterproductive- The disks I mentioned above, I tried setting them on a wet rag- great for reducing warp but I got a blacker mark without it-- keeping the heat IN I think would help more, but how to do it..?

[James Walker]

Kev, I may have misunderstood Tim's comment. I assumed that he meant on a curved surface like the bracelet. Using a f160mm lens I had to drop 3mm to hit the edges on the lowest drop. The mark on the highest didn't seem to be much different and the area that would be at perfect focus between the high and low points didn't seem to be any different either. I have a spare 210mm lens but I am not sure what that will benefit me yet?

[John Lifer]

Nice machine! My blackest mark on stainless is at 200speed 50%power, 125 freq. On a 20 watt jpt Mopa 1 which q pulse doesnt change anything. Oh with both 90 and 270 hatch 0.02 line spacing. Don't think it works on low Mopa. Picture actually looks pretty good. I was playing with some thin titanium the other day and found I could get a nice black there also, but darn it is easy to warp it!

[James Walker]

Thanks John and thanks for the setting suggestion. I wish there was some published start point for different metals and machine configurations. A thought for those that are having trouble with small thin parts warping would a small hot plate to preheat the parts work? If you could set the hotplate to a temperature close to what the part would reach during marking I would think it would stop the warping. I would use a fan to divert the updraft heat away from the lens. I am not sure that I would have the guts to do this on my machine with to many things that could go wrong but it could work. The warping comes from a concentrated heat in one area that spreads. As it spreads to the cooler areas of the part it promotes warping. Setting on a hotplate will heat it evenly. Perhaps a safer method for the machine would be to preheat the parts before engraving. When machining thin parts the key to prevent warping is to stress relive the parts and get the machining heat off the part and into the chips by rapid feed rates so the part itself stays cool and the heat goes into the chip.





hot plate.jpg

[John Lifer]

There are Not a lot of sources for fiber setting. Just the nature of the beast. One website that I looked at a while back had a file with a few starting setting.
I just went back out there and they have added a BUNCH of video tutorials for their software. Now it appears their software is a 100% re-branding of EZCad! Identical settings from what what I've viewed.

Tykma is the company, Minilase Pro SE is the software and the link to the videos is

permanentmarking.com/video-tutorials

I just watched the fill settings and learned a couple of things I'd expect you can as can others with fibers running EZCad.