G-Code - manual settings for use in PicLaser or PicEngrave

So it turns out the developers are quite quick to respond. They have some experience with 2w lasers, and between their suggestions and some tinkering and looking at the G-Code, this is getting close:

Feed Rate: 1650 mm/min
Pixel Resolution: 0.1524
Max Laser Value: 255
Min Laser Value: 10 (I think this should be increased, as a lot of light colours weren't burned in)
Laser Off Command: M11
Laser Control Command: M10 Q
Pic the orientation you wish to have,
then select Std.Gcode

When I had the pixel Resolution higher than this, it burned my piece of wood quite heavily - up to 1.5 cm into the surface.
With the above settings, on Birch, the blacks were pretty close to black, so the feed rate and max power are likely fairly good. As mentioned above, the light colours (of which there were many) were lost, so increasing the min value would likely be good. To etch an image well, you'd probably want an image with lots of contrast.

Cheers.

How fast does the laser travel with this setup? Is it relatively fast or at a snails pass across the wood? Say a 4in x 8in image, how long would it take to etch?

My Stepcraft is still packed in a box from a recent move, so I can't give you anything specific. It probably would take a couple hours, depending on the pixel resolution.
Given that there's a free trial, you should be able to find out fairly easily. I believe the trial not only watermarks the images, but also stops half-way - but you'll get an idea for time from that. Aside from what you choose to put into the settings, the main limitations for an etch like this is entirely hardware-dependent - laser power and axis stepper speed.

Cheers

Looking for options. I find the freeware called Laserweb 4 (MAC and windows) produces very nice gcode but the run time for the very complex gcode is forever on large pictures. The more the pixel color changes the greater the gcode commands. Graphics without gradient changes are simpler gcode and therefore much faster.

Since I’m running uccnc and the uc100 like most of us, it’s macro generates direct control bit code and it runs much faster. 1000mm/min with a 15w blue laser focused to 0.2mm dot. Did a 130 x 190mm image in about 1hr. It has a few quirks at least the way my setup is currently, but nothing I can’t work through for that kind of performance.