How to make a sharp photo engraving on a piece of PLA plastic with a laser.
I’d like to share one interesting how-to guide! Getting started!
When I tried to laser a PLA plastic piece I saw at once that the laser left on its surface very sharp white lines. So I got interested and wanted to find out if our test worksheet would work for it. It turned out that the test worksheet gave a rather approximate understanding of the parameters to be chosen. The adjustment will be needed for each image individually.
PLA plastic is a great material for laser engraving resulting in a very sharp white image. I tried to engrave various portraits and figures.
Here are some results I achieved: Photoengraving on black PLA plastic.
Task: Make a beautifully sharp image on black PLA plastic.
We need:
– PLA plastic plate (can be 3D printed on Anet A8 3D printer for example)
– an Endurance DIY galvo
– DPSSL laser 10W or 4W DPSSL
We set the laser focus squarely on the plastic surface and run the test worksheet to define what approximate parameters we will need. 
From this worksheet we choose the best results (in our case, speed 600mm/s, power 60% ), import the image to EzCad, color invert it and increase sharpness, then run engraving with the chosen parameters.
If you don’t like the result, just play around with the laser engraving parameters again.
