Test Cuts And Presets
When laser cutting, its important to understand the settings and functions of the cutter before anything has been permanently cut into. This can be done in a variety of ways, using presets is one method of setting up your cutter before hand.
Your laser should have some suggested settings for cutting or engraving different materials and different thicknesses. You should also be able to load these settings into your computer or laser and save them as presets. Be sure to name them something that makes sense so you can easily find them again.
Test cuts are also used to set up a cutter before hand. This can be done by creating a small circle or square (about 1/4″ or 1/2″ wide) and cut out in corner or on some scrap material. Then can see if you need to increase or decrease the power before the final cut.