Does anyone have a formula or calculator to help me calculate job time? I know the Glowforge will tell you how long the job will take but since I don’t have one I can’t do any test.
I’m trying to figure out how long it would take to engrave a 4"x5" rectangle at 90% Power 90in per sec and 1000 lines per inch.
Been searching for a bit now so any help is appreciated. Thanks!
4 * 1000 lines, each 5" long at 90in per second.
So 4 * 1000 * 5 / 90 = 222 seconds plus some extra for acceleration and deceleration. It would be good to see how this correlates with the GFUI, it seems too quick.
I don’t think the GF can do 90" per second.
How it figures it out is part of the magic. It is spot on though. Although a conspiracist might suggest that they’re conservative and if it’s going to finish sooner the machine slows down to match the estimate 
If you have a particular job post it and I’ll let you know what it tells us the time will be.
Correct. Max engrave is 335 in/min (5.6 in/sec).
So about an hour then, seems more realistic.
And it doesn’t do 1,000 lpi if I recall (can’t check, my machine is off). 1,335 or 675(?) are closest but that’s not verified - I don’t usually go that high.
From 2 hours and 4 minutes to 2 hours and 15 minutes depending on how it is oriented on the board.
That’s at 335 inches/minute (max) and 1355 LPI - the only option over 1000. Next highest one is something like 670.
That really seems like a big gap.
Jules has the speeds & timings but your power setting will be lower than the chart since it’s going so much slower.
Someone here has done experiments with either Thermark or Cermark and posted results (and the ubiquitous Dry Moly Lube Spray from CRC & your local autoparts store 
)
Not a lot of visible difference in the results for the time trade-off with what we normally appear to be doing - just depth of engrave.
It seems to come from 30 tooth GT2 pulleys and x16 microstepping a 200 step motor. One or two microsteps.
Just use 675 LPI. It cuts the time to 1 hr 7 minutes and I guarantee you’re not going to be able to tell the difference in whatever you are trying to print with it.
Cool thank you!
Oh ya. If I were to put 8 of them into a 10"x16" rectangle would that translate to 8 hours 56 min? or does it kind of reduce the time?
Eight 4" by 5" inch solid rectangles into a 10" by 16" rectangle? Definitely not following. Did you want unfilled rectangles?
The limitation is on the height of whatever you are engraving. Engraving takes a long time to travel vertically, since the head movement for engraving is always left to right (horizontal).
So your ten inch tall group of rectangles will probably take twice as long as the five inch tall one IF you are engraving it.
If you can get by with a single line though (which is going to be pretty narrow) it will take a matter of seconds to Score it instead of engrave, because the machine will travel vertically as well as horizontally.
Gonna be a very thin mark though.
Edit…no that’s not right either. Widening the engraving path horizontally as well is going to up the time.
I’d go with 4 times longer. That and five bucks will get you a cup of coffee at any Starbucks.
I think 10x16 piece of material with 4x5 engraved rectangles - but that’s going to change the orientation as you’d need to stack the 5" dimension as the 2 rows for the 10" height and 4 of the 4" dimension to make the 16" length. That changes the engrave to a 5x4 instead of a 4x5 which will also impact the time.
And it’s unlikely that it’s a 100% fill or this is the wrong tool to use 
Yeah, I’ve got to stop reading literally. 
@soldiercoleman , if the rectangle isn’t a solid fill, it will be less than an hour to do it. Unless we know how thick the lines are - can’t give you an estimate.
If it is a raster engrave isn’t the time just dependent on the area, LPI and speed, not the image contents?
As far as I can tell, but I haven’t run exhaustive tests. It might be slightly quicker to have an unfilled square as opposed to a solid filled one.