For deep cuts, adjust your focus point so it would be in the middle of the foam. e.g. 6mm foam, have the focus where you would have it for 3mm foam, this gives at least an almost even size on both sides and often lets you cut with less power.
I clicked on the first link i got, and i thought "oh god a video, this is gonna be annoying" but then i saw it was your channel! Thank god for actually helpful videos!
Dude! I love your diy laser enclosure! I made one and cut a view port for some laser approved orange acrylic! Mad skills on yours too! Great video with great info. (Now, I may be off to size up some custom foam shoe inserts)
"60% power". 60% of WHAT? 1.6W, 5W, 10W, 20W, 40W, or 70W optical power? Without that information, your video is useless. You didn't put the wattage on your test coupon, either. And your link to the product goes to a useless web page that doesn't tell you the wattage. A web page I should not have had to read and one I can't view on the TV I was watching your video on. And that model of laser has apparently been sold with 1.6W, 5.5W, and 10W laser heads and for all I know you have upgraded it. I rewound the video (which I should not have had to do) Since settings were the entire point of your video, this makes the whole video useless.
You are absolutely right, somehow I must have missed putting that vital bit of info in. I'll add it to the video description as soon as I finish typing this. It was a 10W laser.
That test cut option is a pretty handy tool. Wish my laser had that option. Might want to keep in mind and tell your followers to NEVER cut PVC with the laser. It will create cyanide gas, which is obviously harmful and will almost instantly corrode all of the parts of the laser, pretty much destroying it. Thanks for sharing your knowledge with us, Chris!
Yes!! DON'T CUT PVC! I'm not sure what laser you are using, but if you are using it with lightburn, then you should be able to use the test cut I would think?
@@LostWax We use Corel Draw for design and cut on ours. It treats the laser just like a printer and saves all of our settings. Might see if Lightburn is compatible and add a copy to see what happens.
Thank you Chris, that was super helpful! Any tips for taking existing PDF patterns and making them useful for Lightburn? I tried using Inkscape to convert to SVG, but the results were less than stellar for patterns that were hand drawn then imported into a PDF...
Hmmm, It's kinda tricky getting hand drawn patterns to turn into nice vectors. I hand draw all my original patterns, but then I scan them in and basically trace over them with a bezier tool to make the vectors. Lightburn does also have a tool for tracing drawings, but I have only used it once or twice, and, so far, I find that it will trace both sides of a line, where you only really want the centre of the line for the cut, which makes it not that useful. But I may just not know how to use it properly yet. So, short answer, I don't know of anything that does a great job. Would love to hear if anyone has some input!!
Thanks! "Lightburn does also have a tool for tracing... I find that it will trace both sides of a line, where you only really want the centre of the line for the cut" - yep, exactly the issue I had. hopefully there's a fix/workaround/trick 🙂
hello, I am a designer and I would like to buy a machine to be able to do this kind of cutting and to make stamps. What do you recommend ? I live in France and I don't know if there is this kind of machine.
hello, I am a designer and I would like to buy a machine to be able to do this kind of cutting and to make stamps. What do you recommend ? I live in France and I don't know if there is this kind of machine.
Great video! Can you also engrave foam with a laser? I know it cuts, but can you modulate that? Yes, some colors absorb laser light more efficiently and will cut faster/cleaner. Depends on matching the laser color to the material.
The edges don't really have much blackness on them, it more seems to melt through. They do have quite a smell for a few days after cutting. I put them in my garage until they aren't so bad.
Ive got a 6w laser and it eches wood just fine with nice deep grooves, if it can do that it can cut foam no problem. BTW 65% power of 10w would be 6.5W.
Have you tried focusing the laser halfway through the material? I haven’t tried it with foam but with wood it allowed me to cut through thicker material, although in a lot of passes.
I'm considering getting one for myself, but wanted to ask about the general dimensions for the laser cutter before the extension kit. Also, what kind of air assist or air compressor would be both affordable and work well with it? I want to use the laser cutter in conjunction with a 3D printer to make costumes and props going forward, but am having trouble getting a solid list of items that I'd need to purchase to get things running on the laser cutter side of things.
Hi There! Unfortunately I didn't measure the cutter before replacing the stock parts with the extension kit. The width is still the same though, which is 2ft (not cutting area, but amount of space the thing takes up. I am using an air compressor that's way too big right now, but am looking to try a fish tank air pump with about 60litres/min output. Just for comparison, Ortur sells an air pump for their units which outputs 50l/per min, so I'm guessing that's a good ballpark to aim for.
I haven't tried it yet, So I can't really comment. If it has better cable management, I think it would be worth looking at. Other than that, I'm pretty happy with the one I have
hello, I am a designer and I would like to buy a machine to be able to do this kind of cutting and to make stamps. What do you recommend ? I live in France and I don't know if there is this kind of machine.
2:28 those grey plastic vernier calipers of yours... are they 3D printed? Thanks for the vid and the lengths you went to to give people those settings as a starting point.
No, those callipers are just some cheap ones I picked up one time for a couple of bucks. I think I have about 5 different sets of callipers, cause I lose them all the time:)
