You can see that the filled engraving looks alright, but the “line” engravings have some serious issues on almost all the curved areas. Here is what I have checked so far:
Belts don’t seem too tight
Lens is clean
Movement along both axes is free when trying it manually
Work piece is secured with tape, so it’s not moving around
I am guessing the filled text doesn’t see issues because the laser is only moving in straight lines across the x-axis, whereas in the other cases it is moving along x and y axes simultaneously.
Has anyone run into this before? Any suggestions on what I should start looking at to debug this issue? I am honestly not sure if this was present earlier or just developed recently, because I have mostly only been doing either straight cuts, or filled engravings, neither of which show this issue. Only recently have I been trying line engravings, which is when this jumped out at me.
Thanks in advance for any tips or direction you can give me!
I’m still fairly new to laser engraving and have been experimenting a lot to get better definition with things like black and white photos etched onto basswood and leather. Line speed is a big factor, too quick and curved edges don’t appear smooth.
Another thing I found immensely useful was a ramp test, allowing me to compare speed and power output and determine the best focal points for different types of output. There are a number of blogs and YT videos with guides, but it’s basically a case of propping a piece of basswood or metal business card on a ramp, and evaluating the output at different distances from the laser.
Apologies if this has all been covered by yourself, simply chipping in what little experience I have on the subject!
Thank you for the tips! I will try out a slower speed tomorrow and see how it goes. I don’t think this is related to the focus, though, because the filled engraving comes out looking pretty clean. I feel like this is somehow related to either my laser not being steady, or one of my axes not moving as smoothly or as fast as it should. But the thing is I’m not sure what I can do to get to a diagnosis
