Hmm I haven’t seen anyone try it yet. It’s anodized aluminum of course so if you wanted to try it and have a piece of scrap anodized laying around it might be worth a try.
I have both an aura and a few scraps of aluminum around but am in the middle of other things so can’t test it for you at the moment.
PS: welcome to the forum! I look forward to seeing the things you make!
I don’t have an Aura, but it seems to me if the iPhone pre-set is available from the materials menu, I would think that would be a good starting point.
Thank you very much for your answer!
Actually i do not have anything to try except from my iPad Lol.
Probably because glowforge advertise it on their video, it can do it. But i do not know what kind of setting should i use and they do not have any presets for “metal” materials. Only wood and acrylic. In case you try on any scrap piece please let me know. Thank you
One thing that’s tricky about ipads/laptops/etc is heat build up in the material. Over really large engraves it can cause the case to warp and ruining the job (and possibly the device). If possible I’d design something small or that can be done in parts to reduce that effect.
Thank you very much for your answer.
I wish they had some preset but as i mention to my previous answer, except from wood acrylics and few iron on, no other material. Except if I’m doing something wrong. Im rookie on the laser field.
…for example.
But the lower power of the aura and the necessarily slower speeds may mean that less heat gets dumped into the ipad all at once, it may not even be a concern with the aura.
Yes definitely i agree with you. Im always talking about small names or small logos at the corner. Not something big or complicated
I just checked the settings for the silver iPhone with my Pro, and it goes at full speed and 100 power (that’s not 100% of what it’s capable of, that would be FULL)…
Seems to me at a slower speed and full power, it would work - but without a pre-defined setting, it’s going to take some experimenting/testing. evansd2’s comment seems to support that approach.
Thank you very much for this!
Yeah I’ll try to set it up in a bit. I have a cutting job I am trying to start on my pro that will probably take 40 mins. I should be able to setup the aura and throw in a aluminum business card and see what’s up.
OK hooked up the aura and setup a small svg, this will be interesting. It’s purple anodized aluminum, which may be the worst choice (purple laser, purple surface color, it might reflect more laser than it absorbs. We’ll see.). I am using full power at 1 speed, with 405 LPI, it’s a 40 minute experiment.
Thank you so much. In case it works please if you do not mind share with me what did you did in the app because as i said there is no material to choose that fits even close to the iPad
Thanks again. Please keep me update.
I just did a manual setting. If you’re new to all this you might like this page:
Check out #6, it has links to the official support page about manual settings as well as a great deal of other useful info. 
So It’s still running, but I can see that there’s no visible effect on the aluminum. This may be because I chose purple (black might be better, I don’t know), but it’s looking like a fail. I’ll let it finish and look closely, but it’s definitely not a clear engrave like you get on the Pro/Plus/Basic.
Thank you for the update. I will give it a try probably tomorrow, on a very old iPad before i do it on my latest and i will inform this topic as well. Thanks again for your time and help.
You can barely see it. There’s a 1” tall Glowforge logo in the middle of this aluminum business card.
You should try it for science but I wouldn’t expect too much.
I’ve done a little poking around as I was curious about the true power of the Aura.
In my opinion, it’s probably about 10% (at best) of a legacy Glowforge.
By way of analogy, imagine pushing something with a certain force, and you’re able to move it. For some lightweight objects, pushing with 10% of that force would still be able to move them, it would just take more time. For heavy objects, however, it doesn’t how long you push for, you simply will never be able to overcome the initial inertia to get it moving.
That’s what I think happens with a low power laser. I doesn’t matter how much you slow it down, for certain materials, it simply will never be able to cut or engrave.
Wood and other “soft” materials are easier to punch through.
Don’t want to be a debbie downer but evansd2’s experiment pretty much supports that. It would also explain why the iPhone settings don’t show up with the Aura.
The official Aura launch video shows an engraved iPad coming out is the machine.
Support said in the discord they haven’t released the official settings yet. Many material settings don’t show up in the Aura yet. They added a handful just a few days ago.
I tried engraving on my old MacBook; it didn’t make a mark on it.
