How To Laser Engrave Slate

2022-01-24 by Gareth Lewis

While browsing at a local store, I picked up a couple of cheap slate placemats in order to carry out some engraving trials. I
had not engraved slate previously, so I then had to learn how to laser engrave state.

How to laser engrave slate? Slate is a binary material when it comes to laser engraving, i.e. it will only laser engrave with
one colour, even if you use multiple passes or different laser power settings. Therefore you need to ensure your image
is set up for black and white only, dithered and converted to a negative. It is possible to engrave at low power settings
and medium to high speed.

Laser Engraved Wolf Image onto Slate

That’s a basic overview, but laser engraving does need some preparation work in order to determine the optimum
settings.

There are two types of engraving you need to consider on your journey to learn how to laser engrave slate.

VECTOR ENGRAVING

Vector engraving is generally more straightforward than raster engraving and can take advantage of running at high
engraving speeds. I have previously set up vector engraving on acrylic and started off with a small test rectangle of 5 x
20mm on the rear of the slate to check the coverage.

The test rectangle came out a consistent light grey and left no discernible depth to the engraving. So I stuck with those
settings and went ahead to engrave the following image onto a 285 x 215mm slate piece.

Don’t forget that as you are printing light onto dark, you may
need the negative of the image.
The settings for vector engraving slate were:

• Speed 600mm/s
• Power 22%/18% (approx. 20 Watts)
• Scan Interval 0.15mm (approx. 170 lines per inch)
• Image size: 270 x 175mm
• Run on a true 50 watt laser machine.
• Time to complete: 7 minutes 37 seconds
Laser Engraving Speed Considerations
My laser machine is capable of running up to 1000mm/s. However, after doing some timing trials I determined there was
no benefit in engraving faster than 600mm/s. This is why I accepted the first test settings as there was no point in trying
to go faster.

Your machine may not be capable of running at 600mm/s, but whatever your maximum engraving speed is you should be
able to mimic these results. You will just need to reduce the power or increase the scan interval.

Slowing down the speed without decreasing the power, will give you thicker lines. Overlapping lines are of no benefit
with slate, so increasing the interval size will speed up the engraving process as there are fewer lines to engrave.

Just be careful to make sure there are no gaps between the lines.

RASTER ENGRAVING / PHOTO REPLICATION ONTO SLATE

Raster engraving involves the engraving of an image or photo, to get as accurate a rendition as possible we use the
photo replication process. Photo replication is basically ensuring that one pixel in the image relates to one dot from the
laser. While you have some control over the dot size by using different lenses e.g. a 1.5″ lens.

You are unlikely to get a dot size smaller than 0.15mm (170 pixels per inch), and more likely you will be working with a
dot size of 0.2mm (127 ppi).
The Wolf image towards the top of this page was run at the following settings:

• Maximum Power 22% (approx. 24 watts)

• Minimum Power 18% (approx. 18 watts)
• Speed 400mm/s
• Scan Interval 0.2mm
• Image resolution: 127 dpi.
• Image size: 202 x 268mm
• Time to complete: 9 minutes 36 seconds

Below is a close up of the left eye.

You can see the detail that is achievable even at what most people would consider a low resolution.

Laser engraved slate – close up of wolf eye

The Response Speed Of Your High Voltage Power Supply Unit

One of the limiting factors of raster engraving is that the response speed of your high voltage power supply unit (HV-PSU)
can limit the speed of your engraving. To carry out true photo replication you need to replace 1 pixel with dot from the
laser.

The specified response time for a lot of HV-PSU’s is as follows:

≤1ms (Time from the TTL Signal is given to the output current up to 90% pre-setting current)
MYJG-40W HV-PSU from Cloudray
This basically means you will get 90% of the requested power in less than or equal to 1ms. This may seem fast but in
practice, a 127 DPI image equates to a maximum raster speed of 200mm/s.

1 dot/ms = 1000 dots/s | 127DPI = 5 dots/mm | 1000 dots/5 = 200mm/s

Luckily, most A-Grade HV-PSU’s perform at least 50% better than the specification, as shown with my 400mm/s
engraving speed. If you have a B-Grade HV-PSU, then you could find your self running at significantly slower engraving
speeds

Setting Up The Artwork For Raster Engraving Slate

Before you even consider working on the artwork, you need to determine what size dot you are going to get when
engraving slate.

Pro Tip: Determining the spot size needs to be done with every new material as it varies from material to material.
Using the Laser Dot Size artwork, which you can download below, carry out some marking tests to determine the best
focal position, power and speed settings to achieve the clearest representation of the dot size image.

Representation of Dot Size File

Interpreting The Dot Size Test results

Each of the dots on the bottom and middle row are 0.1 x 0.1mm in size.

• Bottom row: If you have engraved dots with equal sized spaces, then you have a dot size of 0.1mm
diameter
• Bottom row: If you have dots that are just touching each other then you have a dot size of 0.15mm
diameter
• Middle Row: If you have dots that are twice the size of the gaps, then you have a dot size of 0.2mm
diameter
• Middle Row: If you have dots that are just touching each other then you have a dot size of 0.25mm
diameter
• Top Row: Ideally you are looking for the dots and dashes to be same intensity. This means that you will get
a consistent intensity across the whole image.
Optimizing Your Artwork

• Import your image into Lightburn

• Resize the image to fit your media. Don’t forget to preserve the aspect ratio.
• Select and right click the image , select “Adjust Image”
• Set “Image Mode” to Dither
• Make sure “Negative Image” is selected (green)
• Insert your “Line Interval in mm (0.1mm dot=254ppi / 0.15mm dot=170dpi / 0.2mm dot=127dpi)
• Adjust Contrast, Brightness and Gamma accordingly
• Click ok when you are happy with the result.
• Double Click on the Image layer in the Cuts / Layer window.
• Unclick pass through and make sure line interval, negative image and Image mode match the
settings used in the artwork adjustment.

Lightburn Artwork Settings for laser engraving slate

Lightburn Cut Setting Editor – Laser Engraving Slate

Pro Tip: Rotate the image so that the longest edge is along the X-axis, this will speed up the engraving process.
Laser Engraving The Image Onto Slate

You should now be able to engrave your image. Just make sure you set the focus height correctly and the head is correctly
positioned. If you are going to do multiple engravings, it may be worthwhile to set up a location jig for repeatability. It
could be something as simple as a fixed right angle, to butt the material up to.

Conclusion On How To Laser Engrave Slate

Preparation is the key with laser engraving slate. The HV-PSU response time test only needs to be carried out once and can
be used across all your photo replication work.

However, the Dot Size test should be carried out for each material you engrave. As slate is a natural material, it may mean
you need to carry out the Dot Size test on each new batch of slate you receive.

Don’t forget, it’s also possible to mix Vector and Raster engraving onto the same workpiece for superb results.

Example of Raster and Vector Engraved Slate

This is an image I engraved onto a piece of 500mm x 250mm slate that I picked up second hand. Carrying out the dot size
test as described above, resulted in some unusual settings.

• 127dpi
• 134mm/s
• 58% power
• 74 minutes run time

Laser Engraved Slate with raster and vector engraving

These settings were significantly slower than I was expecting, and the power was significantly higher than previously used
on any slate. My initial thought was that it was a harder piece of slate than I normally use and it needed a much higher
power setting.

On further consideration, I believe the issue may be related to the fact that I washed the slate before laser engraving. As
mentioned, it was a second hand product and had some debris and marks that I needed to clean off. I may not have dried
the slate sufficiently, making it more difficult to laser engrave. This goes to show why it is so important to carry out the Dot
Size test on each new batch of slate.

The image of the Ghoul is obviously raster engraved, the symbol in the bottom left hand corner (anti-possession tattoo
from Supernatural) was vector engraved. I added the vector engraving because there was some surface staining that
needed to be covered. I wasn’t sure the raster engraving would be sufficient to cover the stains. Overall I think it came out
pretty well, especially the way the riven surface of the slate flows across the work surface from just below the top left
hand corner.

What would I do Different? Next time I will adjust the artwork so that it is slightly oversized (502 x 252mm). This means
there will not be a visible border on the image. While the edges will fall out of focus, it should give a slightly blurred /
blended aspect to the edges.