Silvertail A0 Laser Cutter/Cutting Parameters

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Cutting

Acrylic (Perspex)

Thickness (mm) Speed (mm/sec) Power (%) Corner Power (%)
2 50 100 80
3 30 100 80
4 20 100 80
5 15 100 80
6 10 100 80
10 5 100 80

Plywood

Birch

Thickness (mm) Speed (mm/sec) Power (%) Corner Power (%) Examples / Notes
2 60 100 80
3 50 100 80
6 10 100 80
9 8 100 80 Test supervised by Russ, 28/01/2016, sample from "thenaturalworkshop" on eBay.
Press-out cut, just barely penetrates, quite smokey. Borderline.

Poplar/LitePly

Thickness (mm) Speed (mm/sec) Power (%) Corner Power (%) Examples / Notes
3 60 100 80
9 20 100 80 Test supervised by Henry, 7/1/2016, sample from "thenaturalworkshop" on eBay.

MDF

Thickness (mm) Speed (mm/sec) Power (%) Corner Power (%)
3 40 100 80
4 32 100 80
6 15 100 80
8 10 100 80

Foam board

Thickness (mm) Speed (mm/sec) Power (%) Corner power (%) Examples / Notes
5 50 25 23 6 passes* for a clean cut with minimal foam shrinkage
5 80 25 23 for a 50% score cut
5 80 20 18 for burning line markers/text into the paper coating

(*) this needs to be retested since we are not supposed to make multiple passes over the same path

Card

Cardstock

Weight (gsm) Speed (mm/sec) Power (%) Corner Power (%)
170 150 30 25
300 100 35 28

Corrugated Cardboard

Thickness (mm) Speed (mm/sec) Power (%) Corner Power (%)
7 100 100 80

Acetate Sheets

Thickness (mm) Speed (mm/sec) Power (%) Corner Power (%)
0.1 100 17 17

Polar Fleece

Thickness (mm) Speed (mm/sec) Power (%) Corner Power (%)
2 100 35 30?

Polypropylene Sheet

Thickness (mm) Speed (mm/sec) Power (%) Corner Power (%)
0.8 80 100 80

Veg Tan Leather

Thickness (mm) Speed (mm/sec) Power (%) Corner Power (%) Notes
2.8-3.2 15 60 50 Full Cut
2.8-3.2 100 25 25 Partial cut for embossing

Etching

Vary power/speed for different depths

Material Speed (mm/sec) Power (%)
Anodized Aluminium 1000 35
Acrylic 800 40
Glass 800 55
Polar Fleece 300 15

Outlining

Material Speed (mm/sec) Power (%) Corner Power (%)
Acrylic 100 30 30
Anodized Aluminium 100 30 30
Ply (light) 100 20 15
Ply (dark) 100 40 35
6mm MDF 100 40 35
6mm Acrylic 100 40 35
Polar Fleece 130 15 15

Other Materials

We start to see issues with the machine when trying to cut with speed higher than 100. To cut thin stencil material it's better to use engrave instead cutting mode.

Material Speed (mm/sec) Power (%) Corner Power (%)
Correx 4mm 30 100 80
engrave coloured mount board 2mm 200 30
Acetate
Polypropylene - 5micron (.5mm) Speed (mm/sec) Power (%) Corner Power (%)
Cutting 70 70 20
scoring (for folds) 100 30 20
engraving 800 40
Mylar (125 micron) Speed (mm/sec) Power (%) Corner Power (%)
Cutting 100 25 20
Engraving holes 600 80

(For very fine engraving, e.g. PCB stencils, it's best to set the engraving scan gap to 0.08 or lower)

Kerf

The kerf of 3mm acrylic at normal cutting speeds (35) is between 0.15 - 0.2mm.