How to Reduce Striations and Achieve a Smoother Cut?

[lindari]

Hi All!

I got a lot of help here getting my laser machine up and running and so far so good. Just wanted some advice on how to achieve a smoother cut, I seem to get a lot of striations on the cut edge which is not very attractive.
I am cutting 3 mm acrylic at 85% - 90% power and 5 mm/s speed on a 40W Chinese laser. Is this to be expected? As I was hoping for a much smoother finish on the edges. Here are some examples of what I mean:



Thoughts?

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[miketola]

First. Are you sure everything is ok. Because i cut acryl (3mm)30% and 10mms. I have normal 300x200 ebay cutter.

[xabungo]

Lindari,

With acrylic, to have a better finishing you need to reduce the air volume or even turn off air, this will give more heat and a better finishing.
BUT be carefull when you turn off air sometimes creates fire, so reduce first and see the results.
if you will cut wood is the other way, more air better finishing.

[lindari]

First. Are you sure everything is ok. Because i cut acryl (3mm)30% and 10mms. I have normal 300x200 ebay cutter.

I'm not sure really, I followed the settings from this guy
Using your suggestion of 30% at 10mm/s, it cut through maybe 1-1.5 mm of the the 3 mm acrylic. Definitely no where near getting through the thickness.

My laser cutter is below average as I've mentioned before, it doesn't even have limit switches..

[xabungo]

Lindari,
don't worry about this, with 40 W cutting 3mm with 5mm/s is great.
I have a 50W and cut at the same speed with 80% power.
I prefer to use less power to have my power supply for long time.

[miketola]

Xabungo, you must have something wrong on your machine. I have 40W chinese laser. Mirrors changed and smaller focal lenght. Also table chanced, so focal lenght is perfect and very accuracy. I just made few samples to lindari and normaly i cut 3.2 mm masked acryl 30-32 % and 10mms. Now i also tested 50% and 15mms . Perfect quality and one pass. 4mm birch plywood i cut 25% and 10mms