Engraving tile, marble, and travertine

Hey everyone, so I have been looking into engraving tiles, porcelain, travertine, marble, and whatever else I can find at Home Depot.
I’ve been watching some videos getting prepared and I’ve noticed these how to do videos have some sparks coming out from where the laser is hitting. Not really flames or anything like that, just bright sparks.
Is this normal?
Do you recommend to not do any materials above?
What’s your experience with them?
Much appreciated!

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I have engraved quite a few tiles that I have purchased from Home Depot & yes you will get that spark like effect when the laser beam hits the tile & no problems. Check out the items you can purchase from Marylandchina.com to laser engrave.

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ok awesome!
I have also noticed there is a TON of dust after they are done engraving just a single 4 x 4 travertine tile. Seems they produce a lot of dust. I’d be scared to do that in the Glowforge. How do you get that ok and will it mess with the mechanical parts? Only had my Glowforge Pro for about a week, so I’m a newbie to all of this.

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Dust and smoke residue are going to get everywhere inside the machine from almost any material. I haven’t noticed a lot of people reporting higher levels of mechanical failure from engraving tiles.

Remember to clean frequently. I keep a small shop vac next to my machine to make it convenient.

I have engraved a few small pieces of travertine and, have noted both the sparks and the marble dust.

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I haven’t done any travertine tile but I would just clean it after each use for the day. Also when engraving & cutting wood you will get a residue build up that you will need to clean occasionally. I think GF recommends every 40 hours of use.

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Don’t go by the number of hours, just keep an eye on the lenses to make sure there’s no residue, and definitely clean things if your cuts start failing to go all the way through.

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It’s quite a light show when I cut Corian.

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Travertine was one of the first things I did. I haven’t used it since. If you cut it too deeply a bunch of powder will sort of grow out of it. Not while it is in your glowforge mind you, but sometime during the night.

With ceramic tile you’re cracking the glaze and then maybe burning in to it a little. It seems to me this causes a fracturing and a bunch of tiny pieces of cracked glaze/tile are released. I would think you’d have to do thousands before it could build up enough to damage any of the mechanical components.

Slate is great for providing a really scary light show. It won’t harm anything, but it looks scary.

Here is where I documented my travertine coasters.

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