3 Minutes to Focus: A Practical Trick for Clearing Up Blurry Carvings

Learn how to adjust your engraver's focal length in just three minutes! This course provides detailed explanations of the steps to take to quickly locate the cause of your focal length problems, and offers practical methods for cleaning and maintenance, setting parameters, and testing and calibration. These tips will help both beginners and experienced users solve problems of blurry engraving, and improve the clarity and detail of their work.

Why is your work always so vague?

When many people first come into contact with a CNC machine, they complain that the patterns it produces look like a mosaic.Actually, 80 % of the problems are caused by an incorrect focal distance--just like a nearsighted person not wearing glasses when he looks at things. If the head of the router is too far from or too close to the material, it will result in "blurred vision.Don't rush to blame the quality of your camera. Follow these steps and you should be able to restore the clarity of your photos very quickly.

The three golden steps.

First, the equipment is given a "physical examination.

First, inspect the lens to see if it is dusty, and gently wipe it with a cloth.Turn off the camera before adjusting the tripod, "he advises. "One student couldn't get the focus right for the life of him, and it turned out that the tripod screw had slipped.The flatness of the material is important, especially when carving curved surfaces. It is recommended that you use hot glue to temporarily fix the four corners.

Don't just copy the manual.

The focal lengths recommended on the Web can only be a reference.The laser angle of different brands of laser engraving machines is slightly different, just like each model of cell phone has a different focusing speed.The first step is to do a gradient test on scrap material. Starting from the standard value, adjust the thickness up and down by 0.5 mm intervals, and cut out five small squares to compare the effects.

There are tricks to getting it right.

Don't be in such a rush to get started! Take an acrylic sheet and turn on the low-power engraving mode.When the laser dot becomes the smallest possible circle (about 0.1-0.2 mm in diameter), the machine is stopped and the distance between the material's surface and the laser head is measured. This value is the precise focal length.Remember to measure the tire at the temperature you will be riding in, as there can be as much as a 0.3mm difference between measurements made on a cold tire and a hot one.

What about stubborn and ambiguous characters?

If the image is still blurry after making the above adjustments, it is possible that one of these hidden problems is at fault: the material is too reflective (try covering it with masking tape), the laser tube is old (if it has been used for more than 800 hours, it is recommended that you have its power checked), or the software has mistakenly turned on the anti-aliasing function.Last week, a student was stumped by a problem with the blurring of relief sculptures for two weeks straight, before he finally discovered that he had selected an incorrect software option.

Regular maintenance can extend clarity.

He recommends that before each job you spend 30 seconds to do a simple calibration: cut a 2-mm-diameter circle on a piece of scrap material, and use a mobile phone's macro lens to see whether the edge is sharp.If you can get into the habit of doing this, you will find that your success rate can increase by 60 % or more.Remember, the focal length is like the heat in cooking, a little bit too much can ruin the dish. Keep your patience and try a few times, and you'll soon be an expert.