I have to admit that I’m intimidated by the skills and experience voiced in these forums. The “don’t cut this material or you will harm your laser (or die)” advice is especially appreciated but also a warning for me as a first-time laser owner.
Getting started seems straight forward - stick to the barcoded materials available from GF and learn from the design files available for download - but I would love to to hear how you all started building your personal knowledge base about safety, materials and techniques.
Rather than ranging far and wide in this thread, I want to ask what seem to be the two core questions for using the GF. (If you think there are other core questions that a first timer needs to know the answers to, please suggest them.)
- What specific steps do you use to determine that a material is safe to cut?
- How do you determine the correct settings for a specific material?