Lightobject.com Support Forum

I've been playing around with glass lately. Running my settings at 15% power and a speed of 150 gives a pretty good result. I currently use replacement panes from the hardware store.
I have attached a couple of pics.
Since my rebuild of my K40 machine, I have been spending a bit of time playing with what I can do.

No photos attached.

I'm interested in playing with this too.

Are you using engrave or vector mode? Are you using PPI? What setting? Perhaps you could attach a project file?

Andy

I am running in engrave mode but using vector images, no PPI. I'm still playing with power and speed settings but 15% power and speed at 150 gives a pretty good etch.
Hopefully the pics will work this time. If not PM me and I'll send you a link.

Nice images! I take it you paint it afterwards.

So I understand you are using a mono image (B&W) like from a BMP or JPG and importing that directly.

The laser is set to Engrave mode, using vector settings.

I really like the raw finish on them too.

Thanks for the pointers.

Andy

I'm actually importing Adobe Illustrator images. The vector based image gives a very nice edge to the etching, not having too much luck with a bitmap. For the coloring, currently I am using color Sharpies. Just color in the etched area, wait a couple of hours, then go to the sink with some dish soap and a Scotch Bright pad and lightly scrub the glass. The ink will not adhere to the smooth glass but adheres nicely to the etched area. Getting ready to try a new method, I'll post the results later.
HAVE FUN!!

J.

Check your "PM". Let me know how it goes!


Marco

jjpumphrey wrote:I've been playing around with glass lately. Running my settings at 15% power and a speed of 150 gives a pretty good result. I currently use replacement panes from the hardware store.
I have attached a couple of pics.
Since my rebuild of my K40 machine, I have been spending a bit of time playing with what I can do.

those look fantastic and the sharpie idea is excellent..

however, 15% power is not really a helpful metric. can you provide tube current instead?

Sorry swamidog,

forgot about the tube power. I am running a K40 machine with the stock tube. All new electronics from lightobject. The manufacturer says its a 40 watt but in a couple of postings I read on this forum the tube power is actually 35 watts.

Checked the current, I'm hitting around 3.5ma on the meter.

Got a new project coming up. I am working on a digital rubix cube with etched glass faces and a capacitive touch control for spinning the axis's.
Parts are coming so hopefully soon I can post some progress pics as I build. I am going to use a Arduino micro or Uno for the processor, Adafruit's 12 ch capacitive touch senspr (4 of them) and the TLC-5940 LED PWM driver (11 of them) for controlling the 54 RGB LEDs.
Currently working on code in my spare time. If anyone is interested, I'll be happy to share the code.

Getting ready to upgrade my LaserCad to the latest so here I go!!