So I’ve been trying to engrave 30x Large Stainless Steel tags (Bambu Lab own-brand) for my wife’s school class for Christmas.
Using the Laser Fill option to engrave a heart and text on 1 side went fine. However using the Laser Image option to engrave the handprints has been a nightmare. The image contrast was all over the place. In the end I went to re-calibrate the printer and then started getting the error HMS-0300-9D00-0002-0001: Engraving Laser Focal XY Calibration Failed. So I then tried to do the full laser setup again, and it wouldn’t even engrave all the lines correctly on the sheet of paper!
Fast-forward 24 days and BL support finally got my replacement laser shipped. Plugged it in, calibrated flawlessly. Again engraved 2 of their tags using Laser Fill. Turned them over and it laser-engraved a completely blank side! Nothing really visible. Tried engraving the more plain Laser Fill side again, nothing! Went through calibration again - same problem.
It is as if engraving onto their own brand Stainless Steel tags is physically damaging the laser due to reflections! I have now found they warn in the Wiki not to engrave onto highly-reflective surfaces… but if so why on earth do they sell highly-reflective surfaces, include them in the original H2D bundle of samples and include them in the Christmas Random Laser Box I purchased!
I’m now going through support again, and have sent them the LAC file too, but I’m stunned that using their BL Suite, with their BL materials that the hardware can be destroyed!
yeah, agreed, they should at least warn or pre-treat them. The glow in the dark filament damaged my old AMS. They added a warning before I ordered, so they sent me the parts to fix the damage, I guess something similar should happen here
It’s why I can’t run copper on my CO2 laser. Copper is highly reflective to IR, it’d just bounce the beam back in to the laser’s lens assembly and burn it out.
You can “cheat” this if you don’t need mechanically precise marks by slightly tilting what you’re engraving, so the reflection will be off-axis and not directly back in to the laser’s optics. It’d “keystone” distort the engraving slightly, though if you’re good with math you can compensate for that in the source artwork.
But tilting 5-10º shouldn’t produce significant distortion and it ought to be enough to get the beam away from any place it can do damage.
You could even use the surface mesh function to keep it in focus.
I have been marking a lot of brushed (non mirror like) stainless steel coasters with images and did not really have a lot of issues with it.
I once had a batch that was a bit thinner and those started to curl up doe to the injected heat. That started to trigger the fire alarm, while there was none.
After many restarts it finished the job, but the part that was curled up was getting a blue tan.
The laser still works fine here.
It’s weird that Bambu sells objects that can damage the laser.
The dog tags that came with the laser are still in their original packaging, and I am sincerely doubting if I would like to engrave them.
I am using the 10W version btw. @ATeece do you have the 10W or the 40W laser?
It’s only the 10W laser. And using the ‘reference’ settings for the fill / image.
It seems strange that it engraved all the fill sides fine and the issue only occurred when it was doing the image side. So I wonder if this only occurs when it is varying the power of the laser? At 100% it is fine but not at ‘some random percent’ below that. From my basic physics I don’t believe a lower power would adjust the wavelength or anything else to do with how it reflects, but I’m no expert!
My main concern is as @user_1843457038 said above. Something they sell and bundle shouldn’t need worrying about like this. If I was causing this damage with an aftermarket part that would be on me. But this is BL material!
You might just have pinpointed the issue there. With full power, the surface turns black and is not reflective anymore. With lower power settings, it doesn’t change the surface texture and therefore, the laser is reflected back.
Still, it would be good if they give you a warning on that.
What did support say about the second ruined laser?
That’s what I wondered. Software bug combined with hardware limitation. Hence I’ve shared the LAC with support…. See if they can trash a few lasers in the lab instead of my house!
