It’s not much, but my thickest cut to date with 1/8" birch ply. Up to this point I’ve been doing mostly engraving and acrylic cutting. Took 4 passes at around 15ma and 12mm/sec. LO head with air assist and 18mm lens.
LOOKS NICE !
Really? 4 passes at 15mA @ 12mm/s? You need to seriously consider revisiting your alignment. You should be able to get through 1/8" birch ply in one pass at that speed a tube current, especially with air.
+1 Eric
Well, there’s Birch - and there’s Baltic birch
Greg, shouldnt matter when we are talking 1/8" ply
+1 Eric’s comment. Also maybe consider your focal point. If it’s out, then it will affect the ability to cut in 1 pass. Also, lens orientation. Bump side up. It honestly made a massive difference to me cutting through leather when I figured out mine was upside down.
Same for me. Lens orientation and lens focus made all the difference
Check that the focal lens is clean-shine a torch on it from diffrent directions to check,check centre of cutting peace is 50mm from bottom of lens ,i cut 3mm mdf at 8mm/sec and 10ma power in one pass.if everything checks out change focal lens -they do wear out
A good indcation something is wrong is how wide the cut looks from the top .if wider than 1mm something is wrong with focal lens
The ply had some twist in it so it wasn’t sitting at an ideal focal point at all corners. I did the best with what I had.
The circle in the middle and the bottom were free after 2 passes. The additional 2 passes were to get the top of the castle free. There is almost no taper on the cut in the areas that freed up first which theoretically put me at about halfway into the board with my focal point.
I’ll try again on a small piece that does not have a twist, but I still don’t have high expectations of making it through 1/8" in a single pass. Perhaps I don’t have high enough expectations on this machine?
Even with the twist, and that power, 2 passes should have done it. It can do 1/8" in one pass. Your expectations are OK. You just need to get it set up properly. The K40 when set up right is far more capable than the info on most of the web will have you believe.
I admit I never did run a slant board to find my ideal focal point. With the acrylic I’ve been cutting I never had the need. This was my first go with ply and anything thicker than 2mm.
Maybe I’ll break down and run a slant board in there to find the best focal point. I also want to play with the focus lens orientation just in case. There has been so much debate about the orientation I honestly don’t recall which way I put it in there back when I added the LO head.