10W laser on anodized aluminum with Luban 4.11 blurred edges

Projects, Tips & Mods
1

Hi everyone,

2 years ago, I engraved qrcodes on anodized aluminum cards. The result was neat and clean.

Today, the engraving is bad. The edges are all blurred.

Design sans titre (2)
Design sans titre (2)835×1573 102 KB

upper left: 2 year ago, not blurred / upper right: today / below : toolpath from Luban

Settings tried
Image formats tried: PNG and JPG
Processing mode tried: B&W and vector
Toolpath settings: line-filled engraving and vector engraving
Line direction: horizontal and vertical
Jog speed: 1500 to 3000
Work speed: 1500 to 3000
Constant Power mode: on and off

The problem stay the same

I’m using a PNG image of a QRcode generated on the Internet. I’ve also tried using JPG images.

When Luban generates the laser trajectory, everything seems normal. But once the part is out of the Snapmaker, the result is really bad.

The aluminum card is fixed to the bed with the small pieces of silicone supplied with the Snapmaker.

Has anyone ever had this problem? If so, how did you solve it?

Thank you in advance for your answers

2

Have a look at the pictures about over scanning and dot width compensation:

If you do some testing it would be nice if you share your findings.

Anyway, your bed is not rising and falling at direction change and sits flat?

3

Anyone ever know what the issue is here? I also had the same issue, 1-2 years ago, perfect laser engraving using the rotary on aluminum black anodized and those files are still perfect.

Now, I use the same png file and it comes out blurry.

I always chose vectorized and it turned a png into a filled image, now it’s doing an outline in luban and doesn’t work nearly as good. I run .05 line engraving at 2000-3000 line speeds and always been good.

I did try the new scan offset at .1, .2, .3, .4 and it’s not that, it just gets worse. Same with overscan testing.

The issue is how vectorizing a png used to work vs now… because my old .nc files work fine and come out perfect. I just can’t build anyting new now and trust it.

4

Here are a few possible causes I can think of for you to check:

(From what I understand, Snapmaker’s laser uses a semiconductor laser that basically needs no maintenance.)

  1. Contamination on the laser-head mirror: smoke residue may be coating it (this affects focusing and changes the power. Swab the outermost glass in circles with a cotton tip dipped in alcohol.)

  2. Your image resolution is too low (if you’ve already tried a high-resolution picture and it still comes out blurry, then this isn’t the issue.)

If it’s the first case, I suggest you run a power-scale matrix test before and after cleaning so you can compare and see if there’s a clear improvement.