Speed, power and passes

Lesson guide

1. Extract this lesson into its own folder. Open settings-start.lzrproj and keep its Line operation. Set Speed to 1200 mm/min and apply.
2. Open Preferences with Cmd + comma on Mac, or use Preferences from the app menus. Under Units & Grid, keep millimeters and change Speed Time Unit to seconds. Save.
3. Confirm 20 mm/sec. Return Speed Time Unit to minutes and save the preference. Project speeds are stored in mm/min.
4. Set layer Power to 40% and Passes to 2. Power is a commanded percentage, not optical watts.
5. Preview with Show Travel off. Go to start and play at 4x to inspect two passes around the rectangle. The 4x setting changes playback only.
6. Close Preview, save your own result and compare with settings-finished.lzrproj.

Independent practice

Open settings-practice.lzrproj from this lesson's folder. Set 900 mm/min, 30% power and 3 passes. Keep the one 40 x 20 mm rectangle unchanged.

• Predict the speed in mm/sec before changing the display preference.
• Switch the display to seconds, read the result, then return it to minutes.
• Inspect the repeats in Preview, save a separate copy and compare with settings-practice-answer.lzrproj.

• 900 mm/min is how many mm/sec?
• How many planned passes should Preview show?
• What changes when you choose 4x playback?

Explained answer

Practice answer

900 mm/min is 15 mm/sec. The operation uses 30% power and three passes.

Demonstration answer

1200 mm/min is 20 mm/sec. The operation uses 40% power and two passes.

Different controls

Speed requests motion along the path. Power requests a percentage. Passes repeat the operation. These controls do not guarantee a finished cut or a particular darkness.

• settings-start.lzrproj

  Demo starter: Line, 600 mm/min, 20%, one pass.

• settings-finished.lzrproj

  Demo answer: Line, 1200 mm/min, 40%, two passes.

• settings-practice.lzrproj

  Independent starter for the 900 / 30% / 3 task.

• settings-practice-answer.lzrproj

  Independent answer with unchanged rectangle geometry.

Use the unit printed beside Speed every time. A number without its time unit can be 60 times different from what you intended.

Matches the demonstrated Beam Bench 0.2.37 interface. Panel layout may differ in later versions.