Any experience with nickel silver and fiber laser?

[Mark Vinogradov]

Hey, guys!
Just got my 30w Chinese galvo laser and it's been a challenging, but rewarding experience.
I mostly work with nickel silver parts and have been trying to find the right EzCad settings to get a good black mark on it. I've done many searches on this forum as well as Google and the only available information is for steel, aluminum and similar more popular alloys. I've also tried using the TYKMA manual as a starting point, but no matter how much I change settings, the metal either burns with a brown rust color, or frosts. I know that nickel silver is mostly copper and it doesn't play well with a fiber laser, but I still have a feeling that may get lucky. I've been using Cermark in the past, but would love to utilize the new toy. Any help is appreciated.

[Julian Ashcroft]

I engrave a lot of silver for a local jewelry maker, engraving names and own handwriting into the back of items which range in size from 9mm to 20mm, so the detail is pretty small.

My laser is 20w and to be honest other than dialing the power up to 100% I have left all the settings the same. I usually do two or three passes, as they only take seconds. I often use the first pass to ensure the focus is spot on and will adjust the focus as it’s engraving. The silver smokes a bit as it engraved and once cleaned up leaves a nice dark finish.

[Kev Williams]

I've had good luck engraving sterling silver, but never engraved nickel-silver...

[Mark Vinogradov]

Thank you for the replies, unfortunately nickel silver has no actual silver in it's alloy.
I did manage to get some progress with these settings:
Loops - 1
Speed - 1000
Power - 100
Frequency - 150
It comes out pretty nice, but it is still mostly a burn and could be removed with a steel brush. I do like the detail and contrast of the mark, but I am after annealing and not a burn.
Still haven't played with all of the hatching options, there seem to be small lines that are being skipped in certain places. Is there a good hatch setting to get rid of those in one pass?
IMG_3070.jpg

[Nick Hale]

Try a different hatch type to remove those lines.

[Kev Williams]

ok, you're using (what I know as) nickel BRASS, as in police badges & such...

Best I can tell from googling is that nickel brass is a mix of copper, nickel and zinc. I can find no reference to it containing carbon...

What we call 'annealing' via fiber laser, is the process of slowly oxidizing (which darkens) carbon at the surface of metals WITH carbon. Since nickel brass doesn't seem to contain carbon, the only darkening effect you'll get, is what you're already getting, with is basically a 'burn'. Now you just need to fine-tune it