Oh I know… It stinks like hell… I have 600 cu ft/min extraction fan running during engraving… the room is only about 120 sqft so it does a pretty good job pulling the fumes out… The first time I did it I didnt have the fun and the return air duct was wide open, the whole house smelled awful.
So far my experience with the G2 lens is… It has basically solved my quality and penetration issues. The spot size difference is not big enough to make a difference. But is noticeably more powerful.
Made the mirrors in the attached image over the last couple days with the new lens.
Those look great ! Thanks for posting your findings.I think you’ve convinced me to make the investment:-)
Also under the advice from the dude from DTR I upped my current to 2 amps from the 1.7 amps that was mentioned in the setup tutorial.
Shouldn’t be an issue with active cooling but hard to say for sure unless you have a thermocouple on it to monitor diode temps. Once they get past threshold, degradation sets in much quicker. I run mine at 1.85 and have lots of miles on it. Most of the hardcore laser enthusiasts run very nice heatsink and cooling setups that allow them to push diodes toward their limits.I’m a little more conservative.
The x-wossee drivers are really nice because they have thermistor input which allows safety shutoff if temps are exceeded.let’s you run on the bleeding edge
I am running vicious1’s laser holder that he has on thingiverse, with a slightly higher then normal cfm fan blowing down thru the holder. I also have the heatsink you mentioned in your tutorial. I probably have maybe 150 hours on my laser so far.
i have been thinking about getting one of x-wossee’s drivers off ebay. I do not think it has a themistor input though.
Your final product has come a long way.very nice work
Thanks… I am interested to see if it now properly pentrates these other 12 inch mirrors that were not working as nice as i had hoped. I will post pics when I get to those.
Fyi this is the driver I was referring to. None for sale at the moment though. Seller has good rep in laser community.
Hi Jason,
Is the Captain America engraved using the Ikea mirror? that looks great! Were you using the same settings you posted before?
No it is not an IKEA mirror…
Settings used are… Acceleration for X and Y boosted to 1000
Max 255
Min 0
Speed 2400
Diagonal scanning
Here is my newest creation… I am rather impressed with myself on this one LOL (its not hard).
Quick video of it here Mirror vid
That looks really nice! Do you have LED’s mounted behind the mirror or something to make it white?
Yes its mounted in a shadow box that has about 15mm of space behind the mirror. I adhered the LEDs around the perimeter of the frame on the inside. Its using 1m of bright white 5050 leds… its bright lol
Very nice! The way the image “pops” had me thinking it was edge lit acrylic at first glance. You’re officially our resident subject matter expert on mirror engraving:)
I seem to learn something new with every mirror I do. Like right now I am running a mirror that it seems to have forgotten to turn the laser on for a few passes. So I let it finish then started the exact same code again. This time whats left of the silvered mirror finish is crumbling off like burnt paper leaving just the clear glass as opposed to the kinda of sandblasted looking finish. Interested to see what it looks like when its finished this evening.
I want to get into edge lit acrylic signs too but finding someone to sell me 1/4" acrylic in Winnipeg Manitoba is not easy. Ordering online is kind of cost prohibitive.
My next adventure with the mirrors will be back lighting with colour. Enamel model paints pass light fairly well with a light coat.
I think I have decided to go ahead and purchase PicEngraver 5 Pro. I think it will save me enough time to warrant the $120 CAD that it will cost.