Laser Power
From NYC Resistor Wiki
Figure out good values for a material not in the manual? Add them here!
| Material | Vector | Raster | Notes | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Speed | Power | Freq | Speed | Power | DPI | ||
| Cardboards | |||||||
| Bainbridge board "172" | 45 | 60 | 500 | Slot width ~1.28mm | |||
| Card Stock 110 lb | 62 | 22 | 2500 | ||||
| Cardboard 1/8" | 30 | 60 | 500 | Conservative, try a speed of 35 or 40 | |||
| Cork 3/32" | 40 | 100 | 5000 | Works great. McMaster #9487K2 | |||
| Double-layer 1/4" | 20 | 60 | 500 | ||||
| Foam Core | 60 | 90 | 2500 | ||||
| Staples Sticker Paper | 100 | 7 | 500 | Cuts through sticker but not backing | |||
| USPS thin envelope | 95 | 20 | 500 | ||||
| Wood | |||||||
| Poplar wood 1/4" | 17 | 100 | 5000 | Not sure about the frequency, seems to work at lower ones too | |||
| MakerBot wood 5 mm | 7 | 100 | 5000 | Manual focus is key. Move the bed up until the metal focusing thing just touches the plywood surface. Then move the bed up by pressing the Up button five times. Hit Reset and then Go. Rock! Then move the bed up another five pushes and run again at 50% speed. | |||
| Plastics | |||||||
| Acetal 0.93" Black | 8 | 100 | 500 | Mcmaster, Delrin 150 | |||
| Acetal 3/16" | 6 | 100 | 500 | ||||
| Acetal 3/16" | 10 | 100 | 500 | Two passes with these settings works well | |||
| Acetal 5 mm" | 3 | 100 | 500 | ||||
| Acrylic (color) 1/8" | 9 | 100 | 5000 | 100 | 35 | 600 | Copied engraving settings from Nintendo DS - tested on colored acrylic, worked great |
| Acrylic (clear) 1/4" | 6 | 100 | 5000 | Book says 4%, 6% has been working. | |||
| Acrylic (clear) 5 mm | 7 | 100 | 5000 | ||||
| ABS - Hammond MFG 1553D Enclosure | 12 | 100 | 5000 | 100 | 65 | 600 | Raster settings a work in progress, based on acrylic; 75 too much for busy bitmaps, 55 too little detail. Weird results 'cuz of textured finish on enclosure |
| HDPE 1/8" | 40 | 100 | auto | Takes about 4 passes, keeps melting together | |||
| Kapton 0.005" | The settings for 4 mil Mylar only cut part way through | ||||||
| Mylar 0.005" | 100 | 15 | 5000 | Make sure the aluminum side is down. | |||
| Other | |||||||
| Chocolate | 100 | 30 | 300 | It melts. Don't cut! (via Squid Labs) | |||
| Compressed Sponge | 100 | 100 | 1000 | ||||
| Cotton (will darken) | 60 | 20 | 200 | ||||
| HP Laptop - ETCH | 100 | 23 | 2500 | Vector etch pattern, probably could have been slightly lower-power | |||
| iPhone rev 1.0 | 100 | 40 | 600 | ||||
| Mini Moleskins ( cardboard brown ) | 100 | 69 | 600 | ||||
| Nintendo DS 1st Ed. | 100 | 35 | 600 | ||||
| Quartz(?) rocks | 20 | 100 | |||||
| Acrylic felt (black) | 40 | 50 | 800 | Felt is porous; needed a cardboard backing so the laser could focus. Also, these settings cut a wide kerf. Experimenter recommends a faster speed (maybe 100) and lower power. | |||
