AURA Material Settings Tests – When it’s Not Proofgrade

I’m a Glowforge Catalog designer, and go through quite a bit of wood just figuring out my designs. I wanted a cheaper alternative to Glowforge’s Proofgrade Basswood, which is amazing and reliable, but expensive at the rate in which I ‘burn’ through wood.

I use almost exclusively the following wood:

1/8″ Basswood Plywood 12 x 12 sheets from brand NineKong on Amazon – (check out my review)

1/8″ Baltic Birch Plywood 12 x 20 sheets from brand Woodpeckers on Amazon

5/32″ PureBond Maple Plywood 12 x 20 sheets from Columbia Forest Products at Home Depot

1/8″ Walnut Plywood 12 x 12 sheets from brand NineKong on Amazon

How to Decide What Material Settings Test Numbers to Use

How to Test Aura Cut Settings on Material that’s not Proofgrade

I’m sharing a file with you I created for testing all of my Non-Proofgrade material I use with my Glowforge Aura. Let me tell you about the file, I have it setup with 9 different ‘stars’ to be cut and or engraved that can each have their own individual settings applied, lettered A through I. On the FRONT side, there’s a place to write with a ball point pen is easiest, the name of the Material “M” and the Supplier “S”. Below that you’ll see the results of the cut test from the backside of the cut, letting you quickly see which did not cut all the way through. Those reverse sides of the cuts are lettered to match.

On the BACK side, you’ll see the top of the cuts made, along with identifying letters. There’s ample place for you to write the CUT settings you used in this format Speed/Power/Passes.

For example in my test pictures, for letter B, I used 8/10/1

8 = Speed 10 = Power 1 = # of Passes the laser used to CUT

Comparison of Job Times of Default Settings vs. Our New Custom Material Settings

You’ll notice I tested settings for 1 pass only of cutting with the laser, I’m trying to save time on all the projects, and the best way to do that is to reduce the amount of movements the laser is doing, cutting definitely takes up a large percentage of the job time when everything has to be cut twice like in the default Proofgrade Cut setting of 16/10/2 for the Proofgrade Light Basswood Plywood.

How to Test Aura Engrave Settings on Material that’s not Proofgrade

Use the ENGRAVE file. I have one saved for every different wood type along with different thicknesses.

Go ahead and adjust the settings for each star with what you want to test, for example, POWER settings. Use the above default settings as a starting point for configuring your manual test setting numbers.

With CUT settings, we changed the speed and left the POWER alone on all tests, with 1 pass being constant. On ENGRAVES, we have added options to look at. On my Engrave test cards, I first chose to change the POWER level on each, keeping all other settings the same, learning from it that there wasn’t a huge amount of difference between 100/6/1 and 100/10/1 settings, it was a slight progression.

On my second go at adjusting ENGRAVE settings, I chose POWER level 9, 1 pass, and then tested the different speeds and progression. As you can see from the card, “B” did have some flame-up at 50/9/1 – it was going really slow with a lot of power = flame! That’s why it’s essential to be next to your machine when testing manual settings, watch them like a hawk! Notice the uncleaned, unmasked card below, letters E – I are gorgeous, no char to clean up! This is because the laser head was moving substantially faster and therefore the air movement created from that allowed the residue to dissipate instead of collecting on the material when there’s not enough airflow. I chose letter “E” as my winner for my 1/8″ Basswood Plywood, settings: 200/9/1 LPI 270.

ENGRAVE settings are in this format Speed/Power/Passes #LPI or Lines Per Inch.

Concept to understand is that you get darker & deeper engraves with more power – more power can be achieved by increasing that number, or slowing the engrave speed down which lets the power be more effective as it’s burning for longer. LPI is how tightly the engrave lines should be – a higher number is darker and slower.

Comparison of Job Times of Default Settings vs. Our New Custom Material Settings

You’ll notice I tested settings for maximum POWER and various SPEEDS engraving with the laser, I’m trying to save time on all the projects, and the best way to do that is to speed up the engrave time, but if you speed it up, you have to compensate with an increase in POWER so more material can be burned away in the shorter time it’s burning. ENGRAVING definitely takes up the bulk of the files’ job time, optimizing this would save you money in the long run if you’re creating projects to sell as you’d be able to produce more each day.

Gift of Measure file RESULTS: Look at that 2:44 time savings! Optimizing the CUT settings to 1 pass instead of 2, and at a speed ideal for our material, along with an ENGRAVE speed and POWER setting that will give us the level of darkness we’re after.

Candy Hearts Shaker Box Card file RESULTS: Holy guacamole! 8:30, Now that’s a time savings! Optimizing the CUT settings to 1 pass instead of 2, and at a speed ideal for our material, along with an ENGRAVE speed and POWER setting that will give us the level of darkness we’re after.