This is why I continue to read the forums. Stuff like this that wld take me ages to figure out on my own, thx so much for sharing your findings @takitus. Is there a difference in length of time, if any, between focused(?) and defocused cuts?
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It was just the engrave that was done unfocused, but there wasn’t any time difference at all. Just a big difference in surface quality =)
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That is really amazing!
This is going to be a stupid question, I’m sure, but would this help other materials such as wood? I assume it works for acrylic because it melts, but could defocusing on wood give a smoother, more even burn too?
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It could potentially help as the defocusing of the beam would cause it to have a larger spot size which would cause the ablated areas of each pass to overlap. I haven’t tried it but I think it could potentially work.
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Wow that’s a far nicer result than usual. I’ve always been pretty uninspired by acrylic engraving because of the resulting texture so this is great to see!
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Does it make any noticeable difference to the edges of the engrave? Technically it should slightly increase the kerf and round off the edges but I don’t think you’d notice in practice
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Thanks for asking that…exactly what I wanted to know, as well.
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Wow! What a difference! Thanks for this post. I’m just dying to get my Pro model, but these posts help so much.
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it really is an absurd difference; nice find.
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How did you arrive at 0.433" ? Is that the highest it will go? I thought that would be 0.5".
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Yes, the tips, tricks, ideas, troubleshooting and then posts where to source materials are incredibly helpful. Plus lots of fun banter. One of the best forums out there 
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Holy cow, what a difference!! Thanks for sharing the results…a defocused engraving is something I’ve only ever done accidentally 
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Awesome! Any issues due to the larger spot size?
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The manual focus and height levels can only be set to that at maximum currently. I am unsure how far the autofocus will go as there is no readout for that, but have engraved/cut thicker items than .433".
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None at all! If it was really too much of an issue you could always run a score around the edge of the engrave to clean it up a bit
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That’s a surprising, but very exciting, difference. Thanks, as always, for sharing your tests!
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Could you do a vector around the edges?
That’s really amazing (and a lot like the engraves we’ve seen on other machines – maybe the GF optics are just too good? )
It’s interesting that this is considered defocused engraving when the result is so much better. I would consider this proper focused engraving. hahaha.
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Yes it is actually pocketing by raster engraving, so you want a flat base and don’t need a high LPI.
If you wanted fine detail then you might want sharper focus and higher LPI.
Discord doesn’t like Rocky Horror jokes I guess, because it asked me to put in a complete sentence. 
THREE
MORE
TRIANGLES
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