Just to mention, if your using a Pokeys 57CNC, Auggie should be capable of operating a solenoid at 1Khz frequency update period
of the pwm during a photo engraving. It controls lasers at 1Khz resoltion through PWM control of each 1ms waypoint, dont see
where a solenoid be that much different..

Art

maybe I am misunderstanding since english is not my mother language..
I understand that 1 khz means 1000 cycles ( up and down) of the tip of the tool?
It would only produce - in my machine- a humble and not really impact.
I use black and white , as in a dithering , just like the picture below.
For sure i will go on researching and trying , but it works for me , to each point in the pic it seems that the engraver gives many impacts, it runs away from me how to explain , but I assumed it as frequency ( yes, I know, I suck at the technology)
I just go on until it works!
By the way, thanks Art and Tweakie, it all begin with you and pls forgive-me if i missed someone.

Another example...
This pic was asked by a friend , he seht me the file via whatsapp, low resolution and with a little blur.
In this case i did a lot of photoshop , changed to grayscale and bitmapp, i saved and put to work.see the final ,It is as always barzillian granite called here 'black diamond' .
The pic was taken by my old S3 samsung phone...I can assure that live it is much more nicer!

Those are very good.

Art

Can you estimate the max frequency of the solenoid? 

Dan

??

about 50 hz.
I guess this is the max frequency I can get.
Although I think 30 hz has a better finish.
I usually leave about 0.3 mm of gap between diamond tip and the material.
It was quite difficult in the begining but now i can get better results.

here Dan !

Oh.. sorry Jan. I missed that. Thank you. I built a solenoid and have been playing with it and the max frequency I can get is about 35 Hz. Above that it would just lock up. Interesting what others can get.

Dan

35 hz shoud be more than enough!
I made today an interface with GRBL and arduino uno 3 , (yes I know this is a mach thread).
I got 5000 mm and 100HZ,in an all neodimium impacter...it went great till now.
An all neodimium means that the lever has two magnets on each side and two more magnets mounted against these two, so the lever floats between those magnets,it´s a great solution for increasing frequency of impact
I also modulated the grayscale on pwm attributing 0- 0-0v-to white and 254-10-24v-to black.
It worked awsome , gona get a pwm for my impact plugin too.

WOW!! 100Hz !? This is amazingly fast! On the video it doesn't sound that fast...

What is the construction of your impacter? Dimensions?

Dan

It is a limit!
I use 1/4 chinese single diamond dresser, it costs about 4 to 5 dollars, i bought ten and with 100% of taxes (i live in Brasil where we are stolen by the government) i spent 100 dollars or 340 reais.
the size is 8 cm x8cm x 8 cm , the lever has 5 cm and power coils about 4 cm , they are round.
In the video you will have more frequency and strength on wich way you make the pics, for example, if you leave it as greyscale you have a slower rate, but best quality, if you make them bitmap , just black and white and dithered you have faster rate and faster frequency, because it will undestand just two positions, ov-white or 24 v black , so you can achieve faster frequency.
Frequency in this case is achieved with 5000 mm/sec on feedrate , so that it will allow the lever to go up and down more times.
You can also refine your images, because you can go up to 300 dpi´s . I will continue to explore the limits and , of course, if limits are best quality.