Use cut command on low power to etch

[HOLOS]

I’m a new Glowforge owner and while testing different materials I’ve had the inevitable mishap of cuts not penetrating the material (usually wood). Also, engraving is a very slow process.

My question is: Has anyone ever tried to engrave using the CUT command and adjusting the settings to what would be appropriate for paper? It seems it would be much faster but I’m wondering if there’s something I’m missing. (I’m specifically referencing etching lines.)

[markevans36301]

Cut and score are exactly the same on the glowforg. Just segregated for our convenience. So yes, all the time.

[kittski]

Yes, people have played with using defocused score settings for engraving to speed things up and these posts come to mind. (There’s probably more out there too.). I’ve not tried it personally though. Let us know if you do any experimenting.

Playing with defocus

I experimented with defocus a bit, and did a thread with some results and values. My goal was more looking at it as a design time saver, but defocus is defocus I suppose, and I got a bonus result when I marked the time to burn. Big enough defocus and lines look like engraves, as shown here:

Fun With De-Focused Score - time saver experiment

I decided to take some time and experiment with the de-focus score (thickness adjustment) concept. I chose this butterfly design specifically because it took a lot of fiddling to get it to work in a 3 step process. Engrave body, engrave wing, cut design. I was working with it as nodes primarily. Maybe a better way to do it, but it was what I used to finally get it to laser in 3 steps the way I wanted it to. First part of the experiment worked well, in that it took me just a few minutes to mak…

Playing with beamwidth (aka kerf)

I’ve been playing with the focus height adjustment, and I thought I’d share what I’ve learned about it. I got interested in the focus adjustment as a way to lower the applied energy of the beam. I’ve been cutting some materials with the power setting at just 1, wishing I could go lower. Defocusing the beam could be useful in that regard. I set up my GF to engrave anodized aluminum, as that method results in a very stable kerf - once the adonization has been ablated the aluminum reflects most…

[HOLOS]

D’oh! I’ve yet to use the score function. Thanks!

[markevans36301]

If you have any doubt that score can look nice check this out: Air crew wings

Also about a 1/4 of the time as an engraving.