I got photograv as recommended by several in this site and have been playing the past couple days (just a bit as work has been 14 hour days). Wood is ok (wish there were more than just cherry and walnut settings) but on glass and acrylic I am having “challenges”.
They seem to process ok but then when they engrave they are next to invisible. The glass has a good picture but no depth? As in the picture is clearly there, just you can’t see it well unless held to light or placed on a black ground. Would a slower speed deepen the contrast without distorting the detail? I would like to try it on tempered glass as well but am trying it on the cheaper glass first.
On the acrylic the picture is there as well but even less visible. If I turned up the power, I noticed the sheet warps quite a bit (but even at the lower recommended speed/power it warps) and seems to not “frost” so much as mark the surface. Any hints? Help.
You are not going to get much depth with glass. The laser works on glass by creating very tiny cracks. Sandblasting is much more effective although with the right settings you can get some beautiful frosting on glass. As far as acrylic - you must use “cast” acrylic to be able to see the engraving. It will take on a very nice frosted look. “Extruded” acrylic will show almost nothing from the engraving process.
I know I won’t get depth, but I am hoping to improve the “frost effect” which I guess is what I am calling depth. Gotta straighten out the terms :) the plastic company sold me this acrylic as “cast” even though the protective paper says “extrusion”. I did get a nice effect on it when doing a simple business card layout but the picture can’t hardly be seen. I am guessing too that with the glass two passes may give more frost. I am going to try that when I get time at the laser. Does anyone have experience in the difference between plain glass and tempered glass? Thanks again.
For the acrylic to look good you have to use cast acrylic, extruded acrylic will not show up at all. As for glass I paint glass black first then invert the image and engrave. This removes the black paint in all of the light colored areas and leaves the dark areas almost black. This works very well and makes a nice picture.