Man, I really can't keep up with the awesomeness in this little 1016 sub-forum. That's pretty detailed for a testing stage! It already looks pretty good!
Wish I could help with whatever you are figuring out too. I know nothing. But... are you looking for tips on the actual burning/engraving or is it more software issues? Just curious in case I come across anything relevant.
Well… The vector I used is made by a pro I hired on Upwork, really good work. Bless the man and his willingness to cope with my severe OCD. Took a few iterations and meetings to get everything right. We used about 8 real 6610 dial references, of whom two naked dials (without crystal on top) to get placement etc the closest to genuine.
Its safe to say the vector comes as close to genuine as possible, but the laser, as you can see, is a bit sloppy.
We need to try different settings, power, speed… see if that works. My first thought was that converting .ai file to .svg applies some sort of anti-aliasing, or details go missing. On screen the .svg looks perfect, but maybe using a .TIF exported at 1200 ppi for example is better.
So I tried the .tiff, the result is better, but it engraves it like a bitmap image (including the white background) even when adding a transparent layer to the .tiff, it does not work. So I scrap the .tiff idea and conclude it must be a vector.
What was noticeable though, is that when using .tiff the laser uses less power. So messing around with power and speed to find a sweet spot.
How this issue was previously remedied, is by adjusting the vector, making it thinner there where it bleeds/overflows to get crisper and less bold lines. But I’d like to achieve a close to 1:1 result similar to the vector used.
Im thinking it will be a combination of both adjusting the power and speed, as well as thinning the lines in the vector a bit.
Just to be clear, PPI cant be set in the laser machine. It uses line width. But my initial thought was that when feeding it a file (.TIF) with higher PPI, it would make use of these details.
Anyway, it will be more messing about but eventually the result should be good.
