I am trying to etch an image created in Image_R onto slate, the resultant file in Luban estimate a time of 17+hours. I have read that the 10watt laser should be limited to a maximum 10 hrs run time otherwise damage will occur. Is there any advice available on this process , settings etc so that I may accomplish my desired print.
If you still have the 1.6W laser, it works quite well on slate. Otherwise, your best option is to use different firmware and software, such as Lightburn with a custom firmware with inline enabled. Also, though I haven’t used Luban since I very first got the snapmaker, I do know the estimates it gives are wildly wrong, like saying it would take 2 hours, ends up taking 9-10. Anything near 300mm would take ~24 hours or more. It’s just a function of how it does grayscale images with the stop and go.
Using Lightburn with inline laser control, it sweeps back and forth and turns the laser on/off as needed as it moves, instead of stopping for every single dot of millions.
You didn’t say how large of a piece of slate. So no way to know if that’s a long time.
Slate can be run surprisingly fast and unlike wood makes little to no difference in outcome if you slow it down.
You also may be running at a higher density than you need. At a certain point higher density doesn’t give any more noticeable detail (depending on the material). Just takes more time as it does more passes.
-S