Lazurs and Cookies

We bought a box of gingerbread cookies at work yesterday which made for an excellent test of the 40W CO2 lasers engraving capability.

Based on previous tests with engraving on cardboard we started out with relatively low settings. Press "go" and soon the lovely smell of gingerbread cookies hit us. And yes; the air exhaust was on.

First try. Engraving @ 60% power, 100% speed and 250dpi.

For the next try I lowered the power, but increased the dpi - which ended up giving the engraving more contrast (and smell).

Second try. Engraving @ 50% power, 100% speed and 500dpi.

Both engravings came out pretty nice and sharp even though the focus was about a millimeter off. Next off was cutting. This time I made sure the focus was correct.

You can do cutting as well. 25% speed and 100% power.

It did cut pretty well - although the smell of burned cookies was pretty strong for a good while after the cut was done. It would be fun to bake sheets of gingerbread and then cut them in the laser cutter to make a gingerbread house, but one would have to let the finished pieces air for a while outside before assembly.

As for all of these - I definitely wouldn't eat any of them...


Update:
Looks like Johan von Konov has taken this all the way in Laser Cut Miniature Gingerbread House.