Relatively new to the laser cutter - I’m using the space-bought 9mm ply and the appropriate slms settings, but I don’t seem to be cutting through, requiring multiple passes with adjusted settings and creating quite a bit of barbecue. Is this fine?
Laser cutter - Anyone else not cutting cleanly?
Is everything clean (mirror, lens), and are you at the correct focal length
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No spots on mirror, lens or nozzle, used the laser stick to focus:/ sure I’m missing some small step
I’ve tried cutting the 9mm with the default settings and i agree, the results were pretty bad.
The people in the space with me at the time made the same recommendations, but i never got a clean cut and got a bunch of burning.
I’m not sure if this is possible, but i feel like the laser should adjust the z axis to refocus when doing a second pass? Because the laser is so out of focus on the final few mm that it was just burning and not cutting.
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It should - and used to be able to cut up to 12mm I think… at that thickness you do get some burning, but it definitely worked…
@lasertechs can you take a look?
This is interesting, and sounds similar to what I experienced. I made about 7-8 passes (settings only requiring 2), and ended up with a few patchy holes on the underside.
I eventually just cut the bottom with a Stanley knife, and the laser had pretty uniformly left the bottom millimeter of ply uncut.
I don’t know enough about focus etc, but it definitely didn’t have the strength to punch through that last layer.
I’ve used the laser for 12mm in the last week, and that was a smooth cut. It’s the 9mm settings that seem to be troubling me.
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When doing thick materials, like 8mm plus, it can help to set the focus a tiny bit lower, towards the middle of the material, so not just at the top, like one or two clicks down from where the focus stick falls off…
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There’s a setting for offsetting the beam, no need to manually aim for the middle of the material. On thick acrylic I’ll do a few passes at zero offset then another few at -thickness/2
Oh nice, I wasn’t aware, can you share where that is? (Screengrab or something?)
