Minimum Wattage for Rastering Woods/Marble?

[JB Lynn]

Hello

We're anxious to broaden our product line to include detailed raster engravings on marble and a variety of woods (oak, pine, maple, cherry).

Can anyone confirm if a machine in the 35-40 Watt range can do this? If so, just how slow will the process be, say 30% coverage on a 12" X 12" marble tile or 50% coverage on a 5" X 6" piece of oak?

Thanks in advance, JB Lynn

[Lee DeRaud]

Hello

We're anxious to broaden our product line to include detailed raster engravings on marble and a variety of woods (oak, pine, maple, cherry).

Can anyone confirm if a machine in the 35-40 Watt range can do this? If so, just how slow will the process be, say 30% coverage on a 12" X 12" marble tile or 50% coverage on a 5" X 6" piece of oak?

Thanks in advance, JB Lynn

Absolutely, 35W is plenty for raster engraving on those materials, in fact 25 will do nicely.

The time required depends on the overall dimensions of the engraving, not the coverage: the motion mechanism stays at the same speed whether the laser is on or not, at least with the machines I've seen. Just a sample point: 10" circular area at 100% speed is 22 minutes on a ULS VL200.

[Mark Sipes]

Wood is faster than marble in my experience. DPI is a major factor on speed with these materials.

Trotec 25W

Mark
HarborEngraving

[Bruce Volden]

JB

I second what has been said. I run 2-25W, 1-35W machines. I prefer my 25W set @ 30 power, 65 speed for glass, granite and marble (300 or LESS DPI). Wood is best @ 70 power 40 speed 300 + DPI. My old clunker LMI's (25W) have the 0-skip feature so it accelerates to max between areas not receiving the beam-I LIKE THAT!!

Bruce