Blurry engraving help please

[ncoltman]

Please can someone give me a bit of advice as I am really struggling.

I engrave anodised aluminium tags and usually use the settings of Speed 200 and power 26 on my 3020.
This week the engraving quality started to go 'blurry' after adjusting the power and speed nothing helped in fact it made it worse??

Since then I have changed the lens as well as getting someone to drive the 500 mile round trip to Halifax for a tube change yesterday and there is still no change. Alignment all fine too.

If anyone has any ideas on next steps that would be much appreciated, my orders are backed up and I am losing the plot here.

Thank you Nikki

[ncoltman]

I have a pic but it wont let me post it

[Daven]

Does the head move ok with no resistance with the machine off?

May be worth posting the picture online and posting a link

Best
Dave

[ncoltman]

Thanks Dave

Yes the head does move fine.

https://twitter.com/ncoltman/status/652582990913126400

Link to the pic

[Spooky]

Try higher speed Nikki, , 350 sounds more like the sort of number.

What scan gap do you have set?

You are trying to leech the colour not remove the anodic coating, if the anodise varies (as it usually does) hitting it too high a power and too low a speed will cause unpredictable results

cheers

Dave

[ncoltman]

Thanks Dave I will try that this morning.

My scan gap is set to 0.02500, does that sound about right?

Nikki

[ncoltman]

Tried changing the settings and finally got it to engrave a decent tag at speed 350 and power 38 with a scan gap of 0.0100.
(I was previously getting a good engrave on speed 200 power 26 and scan gap of 0.0500)

Considering this is almost double the power settings I used to use I am not sure what has happened on the machine for me to make such drastic changes.

Any ideas?

Nikki

[Spooky]

Anodic coatings on non military or industrial items changes a LOT. does the surface feel smooth after engraving?

Scan gap is too small, try 0.05 - 0.1 or you will be pumping too much power into a small area.

Those figures I've seen so far suggest you may well be removing the coating rather than bleaching it