20W Ortur Laser Master 2 Foam board settings

[lickylips]

Hi all,
I recently got a 20W Ortur Laser Master 2 and I'm looking to cut some of the FT mini plans out. I've been doing some test cuts and am not getting it exactly right (melting the foam or not cutting through). I can keep fooling around with the settings and waste loads of good foam board but I thought I'd ask here first to see if anyone has the same cutter and could share settings that have worked for them with me.

Thanks
Seán

 

[Pony1023]

I didn't even know this existed. Curious to hear how it works out.

 

[sirjaymz]

I guess my first question is, is a 20W laser powerful enough to get through the paper-foam-paper DTFB ?
When watching FT show, their laser is moving pretty fast during the cut-outs on several of the episodes.
Quick, very strong, and varying the zones to allow cooling contribute to cutting the paper-foam-paper layers.

suggestion: I would try to keep the 'zap' zone as cool as possible to prevent long term melting. Maybe a portable AC unit piping cold air directly into the 'working area' of the laser to keep the material cooler than room temp. This , along with coupling with my 2nd suggestion..

suggestion: Change your amount of time in a 'working area' and come back several times over to the same location to 'burn' through the material'. This could have a couple of advantages. 1: the direct working area would be less suseptible to melting due to the limited time in a spot. 2: you can see an overall layout of the material cut out at different stages of cutting through the material. burn marks would leave a trace of where all the lines are getting cut, allowing you to identify issues in the 'cut programming' prior to having to scrap the source stock all together. 3: We forum members get to see your results and replicate solutions based on your pioneering

 

[dkj4linux]

A couple of things... first your 20W diode laser really isn't 20W. It's probably more in the 5.5W-6W range at best. The 20W spec is *input* power... not laser output power. It's misleading in the least

I've yet to see anybody successfully cutting foamboard with a diode laser. It's really more a "wavelength" issue more than a "power" issue. The ~450nm wavelength will cut the paper okay but the white foam reflects the laser energy and, if anything, you get a melted mess. The laser the FT guys are using is a CO2 laser... not a diode laser. It's a different beast altogether.

 

[thenated0g]

its 5.5w. I got mine working yesterday. Cut out a 3mm lite ply version of a flitetest motor mount. Took just under 5 minutes. You really need to add air assist. It lets you use full power without any burning or as much melting.

As engraved, it was 600mm/minute at 100% power, 8 Passes

 

[thenated0g]

Oh, also, based off other youtubers, it will definitely cut foamboard, cardboard, etc. The color of the foamboard will cause an issue. IE white will be hard than black.

 

[thenated0g]

 

[sirjaymz]

Like it allot. very nice.
So you did the ply, how have your results been with DTFB?
I'm right at the cusp of going with either this solution , or dkj4linux needle cutting method on a MPCNC build. This has is convenient for the all in one package, however, I can use other attachments, such as a wood router on the MPCNC solution. I may end going with both. This for the ply, and the mpcnc for DTFB/other materials.

 

[dkj4linux]

If you are interested here are some of my results trying to cut *white DTFB* back in 2016 with a 2.8W diode laser. They were not good at all... and most folks who were trying back then were seeing similar results it seemed. The needle cutter "solution" was never really threatened...

More recently and NOT white DTFB... I found that the pink construction foam (Foamular) from HD cut -- and even engraved -- quite nicely at thicknesses up to 1/2" or so with a 2.5W Eleksmaker laser.

 

[thenated0g]

Haven't had a lot of time to play with it. I did make up a couple recipes to try on various materials this weekend though.
I can tell you that it definitely cuts coroplast, but i did the test before i had air assist so there was a lot of melting.

*****THAT SHOULD SAY PER MINUTE, NOT PER SECOND.

And i have a couple other ones for testing Number of passes at different speeds based off what happens above.

@dkj4linux Mind sharing what speed and power you were using on that pink foam? They look great. Be fun to play with if nothing else.

I have a lot of materials to try it on. 2-3mm fiberglass and carbon sheets, abs sheets, 1/2" black foamboard, dollar tree white foamboard, carboard. Ill get back to you after the weekend with my results. I even picked up a couple #2 pencils to see what i could do with them for fun.

Also, the ortur facebook group is really great. tons of great examples and questions going on right now.

 

[dkj4linux]

@dkj4linux Mind sharing what speed and power you were using on that pink foam? They look great. Be fun to play with if nothing else.

I can't recall exactly what settings I used but I was engraving a lot of photos on Walmart craft sticks (birch, I think) that are ~1.5mm thick. I had also sliced a number of 1/8" slices of construction foam from a hot-wire project I was helping the SIL with. So, I'm pretty sure I just picked up a foam slice and used the same gcode that I was using on the craft sticks. I found the Charles Bronson gcode file I think... and it uses 1200 mm/min and 100% power with a 2.5W laser. I used Lightburn to create the file and it's for Grbl and uses "laser mode" ($32=1) -- and it's attached if you want to give it a try... just change the extension to whatever you need.

 

[jhitesma]

I know my 3w diode laser I can cut black craft foam like it's nothing. Low power and fast speeds and it still goes through it like a hot knife through butter. Leaves the edges nicely "cauterized" too for a very clean professional looking cut.

But white foam - even at 100% power and painfully slow speeds it didn't even leave a mark. DTFB I could cut the paper and the heat from that could cause the foam to melt some. But with the paper removed I couldn't make a mark on the foam itself.

Ply I had really mixed results. Some would cut great, others would be a huge pain and just leave a charred mess of an edge. Even from the same manufacturer sheet to sheet from my LHS I'd see big enough differences that I had to do tests to find optimal cut settings. Really frustrating. Balsa was more consistent and at least similar grades of balsa seemed to react predictably. But ply had me pulling my hair out with how variable it was from piece to piece.

All of this was with air assist - without it results weren't really worth talking about much other than to say - setup air assist.

With my 20w CO2 laser I have harder time making it fast enough and low power enough to obliterate DTFB. I found using several passes and giving it time to cool between them worked best - but much like the FT kits I still got a lot of undercutting with the foam melting away from the edges which I really didn't like so I still prefer my needle cutter for white foams.

 

[thenated0g]

@jhitesma what 20w laser do you have now?

I agree on the white foam, its probably as its while like you had said.
Been having a blast engraving stuff so far. I have read that the glue used is what makes ply easier or harder to cut.

 

[Balu]

It's not necessarily the glue itself. I've read that some plywood mills use a color coded system of metallic chips spread into the glue between the plies. This is an identification tool for liability reasons.

Those tiny flakes will reflect the laser, making it even more difficult to cut.

 

[jhitesma]

@jhitesma what 20w laser do you have now?

Whoops, typo - I meant 40w. The K-40 I started a thread about.

I actually did some work on it a month or two ago again...replaced all the mirrors and got serious about aligning them. But then the summer heat got and it was just too uncomfortable to do that kind of tedious work in my dining room so I'm waiting until it cools down to start messing with it again.

My plans to build a new motion system and case for it are also moving very slowly still - just can't get inspired about what I want to do. Keep sketching out ideas but haven't found one I like enough to even start doing CAD on yet even though I have parts and material on hand to do it.

I agree on the white foam, its probably as its while like you had said.
Been having a blast engraving stuff so far. I have read that the glue used is what makes ply easier or harder to cut.

Yeah, I actually much prefer using my diode laser since it's on my MPCNC so it's a system I'm used to and it has a huge working area. Absolutely great for engraving and cutting thin wood.

I'm not sure what makes some ply so hard to cut - or why it seems so variable even from the same mfg. I've cut a few firewalls but that's about it so far. If I was still able to get out and fly more I'd probably be doing a lot more cutting with it.

I may be doing more engraving with it soon though. I finally started on a long term dream of building a modular synthesizer from scratch - I've been 3d printing the panels for the modules but I'm thinking about trying to cut some from wood and engrave them with the laser instead since I can't do very fine details with the Prusa MMU2s:

I kind of like the big bold look - but it also means having to get creative with some labels to make them fit. So I may try plywood/laser on a few to see how I like the look.

 

[thenated0g]

My "recipe" board got a little bigger this weekend.


Found that my foam cutting software, devwing foam 2, has an export/print part. I didn't even have to resize the dxf file once i brought it into lightburn software. Took about 3 minutes (6 passes) to cut out this 304mm root airfoil to match the hot wire cut wing on my 100" pilatus project, so that's pretty awesome. I got the laser with about 80% reason to just play around with it, but this gives me hope that it will be much more useful in my shop.


Tried my first "long" burn, was like 30 minutes, thats long for me


And my daughter and i made up some coasters off some logs i had in the wood pile. the ortur eats craft foam for breakfast, easiest cutting material so far.

 

[thenated0g]

 

[thenated0g]

 

[thenated0g]

 

[Mike erwin]

So it was a no go on the white or black dtfb? In the end?