Laser Materials & Settings Libraries

The art of laser cutting is matching power, speed, passes, frequency, focus, and air-assist to the material in front of you. Vendor settings are conservative starting points; community-shared libraries fill in the rest. LightBurn's Material Library is the dominant format. For test-pattern generation see Laser Vector & Raster Prep; for what to actually buy / where it comes from, see Laser Marking Compounds.

In-app material libraries

• ★ LightBurn Material Library (.clb) — built-in; layered library of cuts/scans by material thickness + machine. Shareable as .clb files. The de-facto format the hobby community trades.
• xTool Creative Space material library — vendor; presets per xTool machine + bundled materials.
• OMTech / Glowforge "Proofgrade"-style settings — vendor presets; conservative.

Community-shared LightBurn libraries

• ★ LightBurn Forum "Library Share" thread — long-running thread with dozens of donated .clb files for K40, OMTech, xTool, Atomstack at every common power.
• ★ GitHub: LightBurn-Material-Library-Compendium — community-curated material library bundles by machine class.
• Reddit r/lasercutting / r/glowforge wikis — settings tables for specific brand/material combos.
• xTool Projects forum library — XCS preset shares.
• Sculpfun community library — Discord + Facebook-shared libraries.

Material-test pattern generators

• ★ LightBurn Material Test Generator — built in (Laser Tools → Material Test). Power × speed grid, customizable. Run on a scrap, label results, save to library.
• LaserGRBL Material Test — built in; equivalent for diode + GRBL.
• MaterialTest.io / community generators — web tools that emit SVG grids you can run on any sender.

Beam / focus tests

• Ramp test (focus) — engrave a thin line on a tilted ramp; the narrowest segment is true focus. Universal across all power classes.
• Interval test (focus) — engrave at varying Z heights; pick the narrowest.
• Power scale test (linearity) — for diode and CO2; checks that the laser actually scales with PWM.

Settings databases for specific machine classes

• ★ OMTech Knowledge Base — vendor-hosted; material recipes, focus distance, controller setup.
• ★ Diode Lab Notebook (community) — diode-specific settings spreadsheet shared on Sculpfun / Atomstack discords.
• Glowforge Aware materials list — Glowforge-only preset list (for Proofgrade and a few unbundled materials).
• xTool Help Center — official xTool material recipes.
• Boss Laser settings page — vendor-curated CO2 settings.

MOPA color recipes (stainless rainbow)

• ★ MOPA color spreadsheets (community) — JPT M7 settings keyed to PW × Hz × speed × power for blue / red / green / yellow / purple on 304 stainless. Shared on r/Lasercutting, OMTech forum, EZCAD2 communities.
• OMTech MOPA tutorials — vendor blog series on color marking.

Make-or-break / hazardous materials list

• ★ Don't laser this list (community-maintained):
  • PVC / vinyl / faux leather — releases hydrogen chloride; corrodes machine + lungs. NEVER cut.
  • ABS — releases hydrogen cyanide; bad for engraving without strong fume extraction.
  • Polycarbonate / Lexan — discolors brown, doesn't cut cleanly, mild toxicity.
  • Fiberglass / carbon fiber — releases glass fibers; abrasive to optics.
  • Coated / treated wood (PT lumber) — releases arsenic / formaldehyde.
• Make Or Break (community lists) — what to laser, what not to laser; usually maintained by big maker spaces.

Material vendor databases

• Inventables / Houston Hardwoods / Ocooch Hardwoods — laser-friendly wood (basswood, alder, cherry).
• Johnson Plastics Plus — engravable laminate ("Rowmark" two-color stock); industry standard for signs.
• TroLase / Trotec laminate — premium engraving laminate.
• InventiveLaserSupplies / SmokeyHilltz — community vendors of "definitely-not-PVC-faux-leather."

Pick this if…

• Default workflow: start from your machine's vendor recipes, run a Material Test grid, save results to a .clb.
• You bought into LightBurn: download community .clb libraries from the LightBurn forum.
• Diode laser, photo engraving recipes: Diode Lab Notebook spreadsheet.
• MOPA color marking on stainless: community MOPA spreadsheets for your specific source (JPT M7 / MAX MOPA).
• Glowforge owner: stay in Proofgrade until you have a smoke detector + experience.