Rotary Tool / Thunder 35 vs Thunder 63 / Glass Etching

I used the Thunder (Thunder) yesterday at 400 spd and 20% power on glass wine bottles for etching. Seemed to work well. And these settings are essentially the same settings that we used during our class a year ago.

I used the same settings on Donner (closest to Metal shop doors?) and managed to crack the bottle. Ended up using 400 spd and 5% power.

I believe Mike (@HankCowdog) yesterday was cutting right through his blue painters tape at 5% power (I forget the spd) while doing a trial run on some stainless tumblers.

Just a heads-up!

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5% and 400 speed for my “test” worked fine on the first tumbler but burned through on the second. Both were using 3M brand painters tape.

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@Team_Laser 12345678

The new lasers have clean lenses and mirrors and less time on the tube. All of these will increase the power output at the bed.

The new lasers might be outputting too much at the tube which is something we can check but it’s likely the other factors.

They tested the same power output at the tube, them being new is likely the reason year old settings didn’t work.

Always test cut.

You can’t expect your settings to stay the same over a year. Think of the laser like a sharp knife. It gets dull over time. Especially with 1000 people using it with just enough knowledge to be dangerous.

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Sorry for the confusion: the setting difference is between machines.

To summarize:
Thunder, spd 400, pwr 20, good (year ago)
Thunder, spd 400, pwr 20, good (yesterday)

Donner, spd 400, pwr 20, TOO MUCH of a good thing (today)
Donner, spd 400, pwr 5, good (today)

So to paraphrase Pearce: You can’t expect your settings to stay the same between two different knives.

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I had the same results when cutting foam board I used 20% for a score cut on the 63 a week ago and had to use 3% on donner.

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