Print one and then let me know if you still need the center raised section to get a sense of depth. A single row will tell you that. Adding an embedded plateau of sorts like @Jules did with hers will make it more complex and might extend the total runtime.
Yes and no. I’ll write up a detailed report but all of the rows except for row 1 in the design are the same color and I set those to ignore. So once it finishes the row of 13 colored boxes it stops. Then I click & select the boxes on row 1 (the colored ones) and drag the row down to overlay the ignored row under it. It takes me 26 down arrow clicks to get it lined up with the next row. Then I change the speed settings on each of the colored boxes (cut & paste). Takes a couple of minutes for each row. Then I hit the Print.
I never open the GF or move the material.
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I will await your detailed report, but how do you stop the job once you start burning through? In the photo, the 8th and 9th rows definitely do not go the entire way, and it looks like you stopped partway through the 50% one. Is it a HW stop (Push the button), or a SW stop (click in the GFUI)?
Definitely looking forward to your write-up of this one.
When there’s nothing in a column it’s because that power level caused burn through on the previous row so I set that fo ignore since it will just do the same for any slower speed runs.
Where I’ve noticed it burning through in the middle of a box I will hit the cancel button in the GFUI.
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I have a question on this…are we testing for color or depth?
The idea behind the testing for engraves is to determine a range of “shades” that you can get out of that particular wood, right? Or am I wrong on that?
Bear with me…I see the largest range of shades occurs at the fastest speed (335), from very light at 1% power to very dark (assuming black) at 100% power.
Why bother to test for shades at slower speeds? Does it matter that you use 70% power at 335 speed to achieve a certain shade, instead of 20% power at 125 speed to achieve the same shade?
Aside from the fact that the slower speed is going to take a lot longer to achieve, and make a deeper hole, wouldn’t you want to do it as quickly as possible?
Or are we testing for 3D engraving here? Speeds seem to have more of an effect on that, without changing the shades much at a certain power level.
I’m starting to confuse myself, which is pathetically easy to do.
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I’m only interested in shades. Depth is something that comes as a result of higher powers/lower speeds but isn’t my focus.
On Baltic Birch ply I can get it all with power management and 335IPM. Other materials are going to show different profiles where maybe the darkest usable engrave doesn’t happen until maybe 125IPM and this template will work to find that out. If I weren’t testing this for GF users I’d have stopped about 3 rows in after confirming the results that slower speeds didn’t make things better.
it’s just like cutting - if you look at my cut config template I run it all at full power and then look for the fastest speed that provides the cleanest cut.
Other people like other settings. Multi-pass, defocusing, etc are all additional things you can do (including LPI for engraves). those create far more complex tests and setting parameters for possibly finer control & output. But I’d hazard a guess the full power cuts, change speeds for cuts and fastest speeds adjusting for power for engraves will take care of most folks.
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Okay good - shades are enough to test for with all of this stuff. 
(I do want to do some defocused testing too though…particularly with the acrylics because that really made a big difference on @takitus’ project a while back.)
Are you going to mess with any Focal Point testing?
Yeah when I run it for acrylic. I’ll find the tipping point where more rows won’t tell me anything and I’ll change the rows from speed to focal length.
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Oh I see…you’re testing for everything on the same grid. (Not a bad plan.)
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Yep. Single piece of reference for each material hanging on the wall makes it easy to refer to. 
Too lazy to have to shuffle through different reference materials.
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OK, what am i doing wrong.
I loaded the svg and ran it but all the depths look the same?
I did it on proofgrade draftboard and it defaulted to the standard graphic preset.
For each operation on the left-hand-side of the GFUI you have to change the setting from the preset to manual and then enter the lpi, power and speed. The templates should be setup so that they appear in order in that column on the left-hand-side of the GFUI.
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Id love a share of your file please!
You can download it from this post (a little farther down in the thread) 
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Yes, please! TOTAL newbie to lasers and a little bit skeered of mine yet. Don’t want to set it on fire in the first month! Having a ton of fun but playing safe. Would love to better understand the ratio between speed/power, any pointers or places to read would be very very very much appreciated.
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No problem! If you’re looking for the download link to the file it’s in this post:
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I would love to be able to get your files for these cuts! Thanks.
Sure - keep in mind the scales have changed since the original files were created, so you’ll need to set your own text on it if you want to engrave it on there.
Cut Tests Generic.zip (4.1 KB)