Appendix F · Material settings, in one place

Epilog's published starting points, exactly as ALPS seeds them.

⛔ These are STARTING POINTS for a 60 watt CO2 laser, not settings for your machine. Wattage, lens, the condition of the optics and the batch of material all move them. A number copied from this page and run on an expensive part, untested, is the most expensive way to use this appendix.

⭐ Run a Material Test once per new material — a speed × power grid costs one offcut and replaces every number here with one that is true for your laser.

⚠ You do not have to copy these by hand. They are already in ALPS: Materials ▸ Epilog starter pack, which adds the ones you do not have and skips the rest. This page exists for reading away from the machine, and for the moment you want to know what a setting was before somebody tuned it.

Speed and power are percentages. — means the pack does not ship that operation for that material.

⛔ CO2 and fiber are split below because FREQUENCY DOES NOT MEAN THE SAME THING IN BOTH. On a CO2 laser it is pulses per second, in Hz. On a fiber galvo it is a percentage of the selected waveform's own band — so 100 is not 100 Hz, it is the top of whatever band that waveform occupies, and the same number on the two machines is a different physical setting. Reading one table for the other is a real and expensive mistake, which is why they are not one table with a column to squint at.

CO2

CO2 — Engraving

CO2 — Cutting

Fiber

Fiber — Engraving

What each one is like

• Acrylic 3mm (cast) — Cast acrylic engraves frosty white. One slow full-power pass cuts clean. Starting point — tune per machine.
• Acrylic 6mm (cast) — Thicker cast acrylic — slower single pass; add a second pass if the edge doesn't release.
• Glass (etch) — Glass is etched, never cut. Dab of dish soap / wet paper towel reduces chipping. 80% grayscale + Stucki for a frosted look.
• Leather (veg-tan) — Real veg-tan: light engrave for a burnished mark, moderate cut. Ventilate — leather smoke is heavy.
• Anodized Aluminum (CO2 mark) — CO2 bleaches the anodized coating white — fast, high power. No cutting.
• Anodized Aluminum (fiber etch) — Fiber etches through the anodize to bright metal — crisp, high-contrast on black-anodized.
• Brass (fiber mark) — Fiber on bare brass — deep engrave for plaques/tags. Multiple passes deepen the mark.
• Stainless Steel (fiber anneal) — Fiber anneal — slow, high power, low frequency for a permanent dark oxide mark. No coating removed.
• Cork 3mm — Cork cuts fast and low. Watch for flare-up on thicker gasket cork.
• Delrin / Acetal 1.5mm — Delrin cuts clean with a slightly melted edge. Strong air assist. Avoid PVC — never laser chlorinated plastics.
• Slate (engrave) — Natural slate marks light-grey/white. High power, slow — no cutting.
• Baltic Birch Plywood 3mm — Glue lines vary by sheet — test cut depth before a batch. Air assist on.
• Baltic Birch Plywood 6mm — 6mm ply — slow full-power cut. Two passes cleaner than one very slow pass on lower-watt tubes.
• Cherry Hardwood 6mm — Dense hardwood engraves with strong contrast at lower power. Grain direction affects cut.

⭐ The dithering column is deliberately absent. The pack ships a default per material, but the right answer belongs to your photograph and your material together — run Dithering Comparison and judge it at arm's length.

Generated from src/data/epilog-starter-materials.json by scripts/gen-settings-appendix.py — the same file ALPS seeds a new install from, so this page and the Materials screen cannot disagree. Do not hand-edit.