The Laser Project.

[Sam]

Pretty neat Tweak.

[Tweakie.CNC]

A revisit to the Aztec calendar, as I had some mirror tile left over from another job.

This is laser engraved on the back of the tile and before anybody tells me - yes I know that I forgot to flip the image horizontally so the calendar is backwards 
This was a lot easier to make than it was to photograph - I took about 20 shots before I got one reasonable one. I have only just discovered how hard it is to photograph mirrors. 

Tweakie.

[dar303]

Very nice!

[budman68]

Very nice!

What HE said!

Dave

[Tweakie.CNC]

Thanks Guys.

As a matter of interest, perhaps, the minimum achievable laser spot size is a function of the lens focal length and in my case the minimum spot size is about 0.1mm diameter. However, the photons (or whatever laser particles are called) are more concentrated across the center of this 0.1mm spot in the direction of it's travel (because the centre line of the spot is longer than a chord) and as the burn rate is time related, with a fast scan, a much finer line than 0.1mm can be drawn on an object. In some ways it is a bit like sharpening a pencil except that the faster the laser scan, the finer the burn line that can be achieved (within limits that I have yet to discover).
This is to a certain extent demonstrated in this Aztec calendar as finer detail than 0.1mm can be observed.


Tweakie.

[Sam]

Looks great Tweakie!

[JHChoppers]

Tweakie,

This entire thread is fantastic, the last project looks awesome.   Keep up the great work and thanks for sharing, I hope to do a laser project sometime, you have inspired me.  (and many others I am sure)

Thanks,
JH

[Tweakie.CNC]

Thanks Guys.

JH,
This thread has just somehow grown and grown, I was going to stop after about page 10 once the build was complete but with the ideas and suggestions from others I keep trying new things and learning new stuff. By sharing my experiences I hope others can build on them and in turn feedback their experiences etc.
The laser, as a tool, has certainly turned out to be more versatile than I had originally expected and thanks to the extra work Art has put into improvements to the Laser/Engraving plugin over the last month or so, things have just got better. Although my machine is not built for raster engraving, the Mach plugin has enabled me to obtain reasonably high standards of work (equal, I think to the low/mid price range professional machines).
It would be really nice to have someone else do a laser project / build log etc.

Tweakie.

[Tweakie.CNC]

I really should not do this because I have no permission to use this image which I came across on the internet but as it is just for my own testing and not for commercial or any other purpose I hope the artist will not mind too much.

This is a piece of 10mm acrylic, the reverse of which was sprayed black. The image was then laser etched into the paint/acrylic and then sprayed white. This is the result when viewed from the front. The next stage is, possibly, to laser engrave a foreground into the front of the acrylic - could have interesting results, perhaps.

Tweakie.

[HighOctane]

Tweakie,

I am setting up a machine with a synrad laser. I would like to do raster engraving. Are you aware of any manuals or how to guides on using the engraving plugin? Any suggestions on the best path to take?

Thanks,

Josh