Hi,
I am using PG and have SD for the preset on a simple vector design - it is engraving really deep in some areas. What’s funny is that these areas are black in my file - but other areas that are black are not engraving so deep…
If it engraved shallower, would that decrease cut time? Perhaps not as it’s a laser strength issue rather than a speed issue?
Thanks!
You can lower the LPI setting and it will not engrave as deeply. The LPI (Lines Per Inch) for SD setting is 270, and that doubles over itself a little bit, making things deeper.
For optimal engrave without that doubling up effect, I like to use an LPI setting of from 195 to 225.
You can also defocus the engrave to make the engrave happen wider and more shallowly, but I don’t know that you want to enlarge the area.
Thanks. The only thing is that some areas of the design are deep… others in the same artwork are not - that is what I am trying to understand.
What kind of material are you burning? (Unfortunately, nature doesn’t hand us uniformity very often.)
Check the numbers on the fill colors of your artwork. It’s entirely possible you have different fill colors that all look black, but are actually different colors. For instance, straight black in CMYK (i.e., 100% K) isn’t truly black in RGB, but may look the same on your screen.
BTW, rather than decrease power, you could increase speed. That would reduce the depth of your engraving and shorten the print time.
the greyscale has to do with how deep it will engrave.
Black will always receive the most power. So a blacker spot will be engraved deeper. If you switch the settings to manual you’ll see that there’s a vary power option (which is typical) and because of that, it uses a grayscale image of what you have with black being the darkest/deepest, varying degrees of gray through white will engrave softer.
Oh, I reread what you said, and it could also have to do with the orientation - some areas may be hit more than others as the laser head moves back and forth. Also as wbgraphic mentioned, the file itself may not have the same blacks throughout.
Is it at all possible the deeper areas are being engraved twice?
Thanks for the suggestions and help everyone!
It’s been a little while since I’ve seen any replies or responses from the OP on this thread so I’m going to close it. If you still need help with this please either start a new thread or email support@glowforge.com.