OK the laser.
Thats an A3 piece of perspex on the bed to give an idea of scale, never thought to measure it but I know from the bench it's 700mm deep say 28" and I reckon it about 40 to 43" long.
I have been too busy today with work but small son has been playing with some 3mm coloured perspex doing key fobs to sort settings out etc. Nothing fancy but all helps.
Last night we did get to experiment on marking metal. They say they won't engrave on stainless but as some people have said they will but not very clear.
This is a 40W laser direct onto stainless set to cut not engrave.
The word TEST was done 7 times at different settings but a scotchbrite pad has virtually removed the lower 6 of them.
Re ran the same test on the bottom of the same material but this time coated the stainless with some patented home brewed gunk [ all will be revealed a bit later ].
Can't afford Thermark it costs £100 plus VAT per aerosol here [ no typo ] which is an insane price but they have the US patent on the stuff.
These 7 test pieces have also been scotchbrighted at the same time as the upper ones.
Very pleased with this and reckon I could probably do better with just a few pounds worth of ingredients.
Although this is the first laser I have owned I have been around them for many years and one of the top laser guys in the world is one of my customers and friend.
Back to playing and this is the Aztec calender that we cut out.
This is cut out of 7mm plywood, engraved then cut. It's probably on it's limit for wood as it has charred the edges. Could probably get it a bit better than this if I went onto to nitrogen as assist gas but it's not been bought for that. Awesome detail though. Ignore the black mark above center, that's a nail hole as I was using a piece of crap plywood off a packing case.
Hopefully I might get a couple of hours tomorrow to experiment further.
