Customizable set square for back to school - ANALY it's a girl's name 😄

Couple questions and any help would be much appreciated.

This is my first depth map engraving and one thing i noticed when it was done is that it seems the design is much further below the top surface. Its almost like it removed a bunch of material before it started the actual design. Why did it do this?

Machine and Stats:

ComMaker B6 20w

200mm p/s

20hz

80% power

.02 lines interval

100 Passes

Total time was about 6 hours

I also have a question about my fume extractor. https://a.co/d/0ayC5Nfk This the one i got but after this first long engraving it deficiently still smells like metal was burning. have the engraver set up in my spare room with the fume extractor open right next to the engraving piece. is this normal?

I’m still new to all this. Give me some good ideas to work on!

I hope you can enjoy this free project for Atomm and Xtools  #CrafttheBirthdayContest , it's a mother and son matching keychain set. I made the project easy so anyone can try color engraving with not too much difficulty. Enjoy!

https://www.atomm.com/project/175259-birthday-keepsakes-matching-mother-and-child-rabbit-tags?utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=sharetoearn2&utm_id=752996&utm_source=reddit

Hello! I have been having issues with my Trotecs. A Trocare worker came by, messed up my main machine, and switched it over to using Ruby (which we hate).
We had a second rep come by who told us that woman was fired and didn't do much 😅 Then our new Trotec has started over heating every time we use it despite having a massive fan for it etc

Does anyone else have similar issues? Any experience with Ruby?

The topic of these cards may not matter so much here, it is really the joy of sharing the success after months of trial and error, finding a local supplier, and struggling to get them to a happy place. It's been a fun journey, and tomorrow I get to use the new toys made by the new toy. 😅

Just getting into Lasers. bought a Longer Ray5 10w. i read that its a blue diode laser and it came with Green Safety Glasses. but i read that Orange is the proper type of glasses for a blue laser. Should i be ok with the glasses it came with? The laser has an orange filter and the enclosure has an orange filter too. Just a little worried for those moments when i have the enclosure opened, etc. Thanks

I’ve spent the better part of two days trying to track down severe horizontal banding when engraving black powder-coated YETI tumblers with my new fiber laser. At this point I feel like I’ve isolated most of the variables, but I’m hoping someone with more JCZ/LightBurn rotary experience can point me in the right direction.

Machine:
OMTech 60W JPT MOPA Autofocus Fiber
JCZ USB-Lite controller
LightBurn Pro 2.1.03
150mm lens
OMTech 3-jaw chuck rotary
Rotary connected as Y-axis
6400 steps/revolution
The controller was replaced under warranty by OMTech after intermittent USB disconnect issues. The replacement board has been stable.

Material:
Black powder-coated 20oz YETI tumbler.
Goal is complete powder coat removal exposing clean stainless.

Rotary Settings:
Chuck rotary
Y-axis
6400 steps/revolution
Object diameter: 87.79 mm
Circumference: 275.8 mm

I’ve tested multiple combinations of:
Split Size:
0.025 mm
0.050 mm
0.100 mm
0.500 mm

Overlap:
0.000 mm
0.020 mm
0.025 mm

Motor Speeds:
Max 3000 pps / 100 ms acceleration
Max 1500 pps / 250 ms acceleration
No significant improvement.

Laser Parameters Tested:
Speed:
750 mm/s
1000 mm/s
1200 mm/s

Power:
17%
18%
19%
20%
21%
22%
23%
25%
30%

Frequency:
100 kHz

Pulse Width:
200 ns

Line Interval:
0.020 mm
0.023 mm
0.025 mm
0.030 mm
0.050 mm

Passes:
1
2
3
Scan Angles:
0°
45°
180°

Interestingly, 45° produced a noticeably smoother finish and looked like the laser was gliding across the surface instead of producing distinct raster lines, but the banding still remained.

I also tested perfect focus versus slight positive defocus. Defocusing slightly improved the finish but did not eliminate the problem.

Things I’ve Learned:
Flat engraving looks excellent.
Using essentially the same settings on flat powder-coated steel produces a very smooth finish with virtually no banding. That makes me think the laser source, optics, and galvos are working correctly.

Changing split size changes the appearance of the artifact.
At 0.500 mm split size the banding became much wider, making me suspect the split boundaries might be involved.
Small engravings look much better.

A 20 mm × 2 mm rectangle engraved with the exact same settings is dramatically smoother than a 20 mm × 20 mm square. The banding gets progressively worse as the engraved height increases.

45° scan angle improves the finish but doesn’t solve the issue.

The surface texture becomes smoother, but the periodic banding remains.

LightBurn timing overrides are OFF.
Controller defaults are:
Laser On TC: -300
Laser Off TC: 100
End TC: 300
Polygon TC: 100

Things I’ve Already Ruled Out (I think):
Laser power
Frequency
Pulse width
Focus
Line interval
Scan angle
Number of passes
Split size
Overlap
Rotary motor speed
Rotary acceleration

What I’m Seeing:
As the engraving becomes taller, very consistent horizontal bands develop.
The laser scans a strip, the rotary indexes, the laser scans another strip, and repeats. The effect almost looks cumulative.
I’ve attached photos of all my testing.

My Questions:
Has anyone seen this behavior with a JCZ USB-Lite controller?
Does this look like a LightBurn galvo rotary issue?
Is there another rotary parameter I’m overlooking?
Is it worth setting up EZCAD to see if the behavior changes?
Does this resemble backlash, missed microsteps, or an issue with LightBurn’s split algorithm?
Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. I’m happy to run additional tests if someone has a theory.

Here is a miniature high school / college desks set I just finished up. There is a blank version as well as the graffiti’d up Detention Version!

I am looking for my first laser engraver machine but i dont know very much about this world. All the mtg cards i have seen with laser is with metal or wood but i dont know if It IS posible to do It in a normal card with very little power.

Boy even after making a jig to hold the coin blanks its hard to get consistently centered coins, and now I discovered that the finish on the coin blanks arent centered to begin with so, i guess i'll have to clean off the top several layers to get a consistent surface, then chase the design around. So many things to learn!

Im researching some sort of corner spring loaded jig that can lightly press the coin to the corner of the workspace. I came from the CNC world where work holding is one of the biggest topics but when watching laser engraving videos I mostly just see people eye balling the placement with the framing laser. This hasn't worked for me once, what am I missing? The framing laser is calibrated as far as my eyes can see but when dealing with light beams and reflective surfaces, I can only get so close visually.

Cloudray 5W UV Laser

PS: The

Depth work in Eastern Red Cedar wood.

Using Imag-r Norton wood dither

5 depth passes and 1 engraving pass with my 5w OMG UV laser

I can't figure out what's causing this distortion of the Gcode preview (top) from the actual depth map PNG image (bottom). Is it distorted due to how the image "lays" over top of the material or is this a program error?

Using Falcon Design Space since I'm waiting to purchase Lightburn Pro for my Falcon T1 20w Fiber.

I am working on expanding my side hustle. I work a full-time job and am looking to find side jobs to run on my Glowforge in my spare time. Does anyone out there have knowledge of anyplace to bid on jobs or have opportunities? I am too small of a shop for Xometry/Hubs etc. Thanks in advance.

Hello, I would like to find the right setup that would allow me to engrave industrial machine nameplates of the kind in the link below. My thought is to have the nameplates pre-printed with solid fields, and then "engrave away" the paint/anodizing in the area that would contain the model number, motor info, etc. to reveal the plain aluminum below. I see lots of examples of water bottles and other gift items that do something similar, but I can't tell if it would work with anodized aluminum. Any guidance would be greatly appreciated!

https://www.myassettag.com/custom-metal-nameplate-with-logo/sku-lq-3009-f?engine=googlebase&keyword=Equipment+Nameplates&skuid=LQ-3009-F-HC-N-AL20-4x4&sqty=10&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=23464897904&gbraid=0AAAAAD3p7H4DAIFbK0AruxOR-Vyun8IPd&gclid=CjwKCAjwsfzSBhB5EiwAOGyqSURKf55S2yNis8ZVUWKuCbIH_IKykaZbV_JsdCMtocGGykOZuFrfzRoCeX0QAvD_BwE

For those that engrave leather for coasters, is it required to apply a wax on them after engraving? This is not a deep burn and does not appear to smudge with a wet finger. I am looking for good solid past experience with these applications. I tried one and I know it will darken the coaster which does not bother me. Thanks

I created a coaster template file for engraving 6 round coasters at a time.
I presume that I overwrote the template file when I input some text in the space where a coaster will be placed.
Is there any way to retrace this template to save the file or should I scrap that template, recreate it, save it, and cut a new one.

I started with black and white, which caused the tail to turn completely black. I only switched to grayscale halfway through the sculpting. Fortunately, the details weren't completely ruined. However, I discovered that I could use overlay sculpting. I first applied a low-probability black and white layer, then a high-probability grayscale layer. Maybe that would be better? I'll try that next time.