Laser advice

So I need some general advice on printing with a laser. I swapped the DW660 with a Jtech laser, used estlcam to convert a small 4"x4" coaster I had cut with the DW660, and loaded into repetier. I set the laser options in estlcam to start: M106 S150 and stop: M107 S0.

First cut, came out pretty darn good, but I know there are some tricks of the trade.

  1. Do I need to set a clearance plane? I had 5mm for milling, but I’m thinking this is no longer applicable??

  2. I printed a few letters and set the toolpath depth in estlcam to 0.00mm.

  3. When I printed a few letters (especially bold thick lettters), the inside is lighter then the outline of the letter. I may bump the power from S150 to S175 or is it a matter of slowing the print down to get a deep burn.

  4. I have very minor smoke staining. I thought I read, you can wipe the wood down with _________, to get rid of the stains.

Thanks guys,
Z

Getting so frustrated with Estlcam tonight. I am trying to have the Z axis static throughout the whole cut, but for some reason when I generate the gcode it adds Z movements (see code). I’ve set the clearance plane to 0.0mm and the toolpath depth/start level is also 0.0mm. I can’t figure out where the .5mm is coming from. That minor Z movement causes burn holes when the laser turns back on and moves back to 0.0mm. Any ideas?


G00 X0.0000 Y0.0000 Z0.0000 F2100

;No. 1: Hole 4
G00 X49.3551 Y4.8710 F2100
G00 Z0.5000 F480
M106 S150
G01 Z0.0000 F360 S24000
G01 X54.7481 F1800
G01 X53.9948 F1800
G01 Y4.8360 F1800
G01 X50.2125 F1800
G00 X54.7481 Y4.8710 F2100
M107
G00 Z0.5000 F480
M106 S150
G01 Z0.0000 F360
G01 Y4.9060 F1800
G01 X48.6935 F1800
G01 X55.3178 F1800 

I never thought to use estlcam for a laser but it looks like you almost have it working. What if you changed all z movements to something like .01? I honestly have no idea but maybe the zero is freaking it out as I am sure most operations were coded for a non-zero z movement. So maybe something really small will work better?

Why Estlcam? I am guessing for the “infill” you are doing?

Change the F(z) movement to 0 and it should go away.

Nice even burn and no horrid black dots :).

Clearance plane = 0.00mm
F(z) = 8.0mm/s (doesn’t matter see below)
Z+ = 0.1mm (doesn’t matter see below)
I even tried disabling the Z axis on the coordinates tab. (Note for some reason this removes the start/stop laser commands from the gcode)

Not the most graceful, but it works and only takes an extra 10 secs…after generating the gcode I just did a find for the following lines below and replaced with a blank line.
G00 Z0.5000 F480
G00 Z0.0000 F480

I never thought to use estlcam for a laser but it looks like you almost have it working. What if you changed all z movements to something like .01? I honestly have no idea but maybe the zero is freaking it out as I am sure most operations were coded for a non-zero z movement. So maybe something really small will work better?

Why Estlcam? I am guessing for the “infill” you are doing?

Tried replacing with .01 and it still generates a 0.500. Ryan, what is the goto app for laser applications, inkscape?

Jim, if I type 0.0 in the F(z) box it defaults to 0.1mm/s. I was able to minimize the black dot syndrome if I sped up the F(z), but completely eliminated it by editing the gcode above.

Z

I use the inkscape plugin, usually.