After doing the ceramic tile last evening, I decided to try transparent glass again… same flat-white paint and speed/power setting as for tile. After lasering…
Paint removed and held up against indirectly-lit wall…
Flipped to accommodate the glass thickness and placed on colored background…
Surely this should be good for something… 
– David
Been playing with my laser for a few days and I have to say that light burn test pattern is just amazing. Really lets you dial things in to get the contrast right in one or two tries. Might have to try something like that with the routers.
Oh and this thread has been the major motivation to get the laser dialed in again, so thank you for not frolicking (too often 
).
Now grblHAL can be installed on the skr pro i wish i could get more time to play with it. But spare time is just a belove dream now i have 2 children…
@vicious1 did you tested it yet ?
WHAT?!?!?! It’s ready for the SKR? Just did the rambo 2022 laser Revisit - #9 by mordiev. Tell me about it in that thread so I can try it please.
A bit more fun…
When last we left off… from some previous work I’d done, you can get a different effect on glass simply with the paint you choose to coat the glass with before lasering… flat-white paint (with high TiO2 content) gives BLACK marking while dark paint/backing gives a “frosted”/ablated marking (note the lizards…).
Earlier today in post #81 I shared a portrait using flat-white paint on transparent glass against a back-lit wall…
So, later I did a "frosted’/ablated image using just a dark backing (tempera paint or matt-black works as well) to ablate the image on transparent glass… same 2.3W laser, same speed/power settings as for ceramic, resized image to fit scrap piece of glass. Here I’ve simply placed the glass on a clean piece of cereal-box cardboard (chipboard) and lasered through the glass with a negative image, focused on the chipboard surface…
Glass and backing separated to show lasered images on both…
Glass simply washed in dish water to remove soot and edge-lighted… no paint to remove!
Contrasting the two images on appropriate background…
And, of course, putting the two laser processes together – and with careful registration – you can do two-“color” engravings…
Fun stuff!
– David
Noticed that engraver’s back in stock - but it’s now $138.
Seemed like a good deal at $79. Curious if you think it’s worth considering at the new price.
Those two color are incredibly impressive, from just two different base paints. Dude, that is kind of amazing.
On your pictures, are you using the dot width correction? I thought you had mentioned it but it isn’t coming up in the search.
Ryan, I’ve played around with dot-width correction a bit… a couple of lasers ago.
For those who may not know, LightBurn’s dot-width correction setting is an adjustment for a line’s true length, which when lasered is extended by 1/2 the laser’s “dot diameter” on each end. It is especially useful for dithered images which are made up of many extremely short line segments. The effect of no correction on a dithered image is a darker burn and some loss of detail while adding dot width correction lightens the image and brings out more detail…
Since I’m playing with very low-power lasers right now (2.3W), the dot-size isn’t terribly large… and I feel the dot-width correction isn’t really necessary. Should I start playing with my higher-powered lasers again, it would probably be worth trying to dial the dot-width correction factor in, for best detail. And, of course, quality of focus also plays its part… with better focus yielding smaller effective dot size. My problem is I don’t stay on any one machine long enough to dial it in…
– David
Over on the LightBurn forum (similar thread), @LsrSal mentioned the possibly putting together a BOM for a clone of this simple but sturdy machine… and adding a better laser and firmware.
It would be an easy build for most on this forum and might be done for $100 or so? IMO this would be a fun little starter/dedicated laser machine… and far more capable than you might first believe.
– David
I see his bom does not include laser. Why is everyone walking away from it? I am having fun with it.
Riley,
@LsrSal’s BOM was an rough first-cut at a BOM… not yet fleshed-out and exhaustive. I suspect the eventual BOM will suggest a couple of inexpensive lasers and controllers… to make our “near-clone” as good a “deal” as possible for those who have to buy the whole “kit”. But the laser and controller is where folk’s preferences and $$$ will come into play… and some of us are fortunate to already have laser modules and controllers in our stash of parts to draw on.
I, too, had fun with the original laser… it does work to a degree. But I have other laser modules to compare it to… and the original laser leaves something to be desired; i.e. my JD label in post #71. So, I went to the trouble of chopping off the odd, incompatible, connector and made it so that I could more easily swap out lasers if/when I wanted to… but that’s me. As long as you’re having fun with yours and it’s doing what you need to do… that’s fantastic! But I don’t think people are “walking away” from it… maybe, like me, they’re just wanting to do more than the original laser allows them to do.
I really like the idea of a BOM for a “ near-clone ” of this machine. I took the “risk” of buying this machine in the first place… thinking the parts alone “ must ” be worth the $79 asking price, even if it was otherwise junk. It wasn’t junk however… but a pleasant surprise, once a few “love taps” were applied.
But with the sold-out/lack of availability now, many are missing out. I think we now know what we’d like to see in a little machine like this… better laser, GRBL-controller and LB-compatibility, simple Z-adjust, etc. I think this is a real opportunity to make this “near-clone” of a good machine… into a better, more perfect, little starter/dedicated machine. 
– David
So if I don’t want to buy lightburn, what open source grbl sender would be good to use?
Anyone know of a good set of trucks that can be 3d printed for 20/20 strut to make one of these frames? I know a guy who has a spare pile of struts and an idle 3d printer and an old creality 3d printer controller…
UGS and cncjs work well with grbl. Light burn also does CAM and it has some efficiencies if you use it for both.
Huh? What?? Why? !!
My avatar is really me… 10 year or so ago. And it’s a bit of a running joke. At my age, and as nice a thought that might be… she’s way too much woman for me… 
I do understand. At 71 and married for 52 years i do understand…
I’m 76 and married 50 years… widower for the last 6… 
Mmmm… Great, now I want baked beans…
I had three of them, same thing just different name, saved in a list and was lucky enough to check today and one was back in stock for $79. If anyone else is interested, just be patient and hopefully little by little they will occasionally restock.
Playing around with the “two-tone” engravings on transparent glass again…
Ceramic tile and glass done on our little Cenoz machine with Banggood 2.3W laser and Lightburn…
The process… lizards for reference – same gcode, same laser settings, different paint
Flat-white painted glass being lasered for black background…
Before paint/soot removal with acetone… I keep a personal fan gently blowing across surface to keep lens from fouling…
White paint and soot removed… note the lettering is still transparent…
Painted now with black tempera paint and lettering/scrollwork is lasered (negative image!)…
Paint removed and frosted letters… tempera paint can be washed off with plain or dishwater…
and now joins my “collection” of scrap glass…
Remember to use a negative image for the light/frosted bits. And since the workpiece is removed a couple of times… registration is key!
– David
