Continuing the discussion and testing from @jamesdhatch 's tests here:
I’ve been running through a few tests to determine optimal cut, score and engrave settings for the materials I use the most… in my case they are the PG materials so at least I’m not duplicating his efforts.
I wanted to test for several things simultaneously so i worked up a quick file to test for Score and Cut settings, and another one to test for Engraving results.
I made the cut/score file a bit challenging to cut, because I wanted to make sure that the settings I was capturing would make it all the way through, even on tightly curved lines, and not just rectangles. (Was also testing for the pinhole score problems at corners, although that turned out to be a non-issue, so I didn’t need it after all.)
For the engraving, I tested the mid-range first at a set speed, (on oval shapes to test for edge stair-stepping), and based on those results, just picked the 270 LPI setting, since I couldn’t see any appreciable improvement between that one and the 340 LPI. (And the 270 was a lot quicker.)
Then I just varied the speed and power settings to see how things turned out on the various materials, hardwood and ply. Slowing it down darkens the results a bit, but mainly deepens the pit. Increasing the power darkens in a linear fashion.
At the low power settings - it wasn’t even getting through the masking, so that bunch I’ll save for papers, leathers and cardboard.
What else do I need to be looking for here guys? The testing takes a while to set up with that many colors - I’d rather do them all at once to save setup time.