{"id":1792,"date":"2021-12-29T12:37:47","date_gmt":"2021-12-29T12:37:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/novanta.com\/precision-manufacturing\/?post_type=novanta_tech_paper&#038;p=1792"},"modified":"2026-07-24T15:46:29","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T15:46:29","slug":"improving-character-marking-quality","status":"publish","type":"novanta_tech_paper","link":"https:\/\/novanta.com\/precision-manufacturing\/resources\/whitepapers\/improving-character-marking-quality\/","title":{"rendered":"Improving Character Marking Quality"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-technical-paper-overview\">Technical Paper Overview<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Improving Character Marking Quality on High-Speed Production Lines<br>Scan head delays, not laser power, decide character marking quality at speed.<br>Faster line speeds, smaller fonts, and tighter regulatory quality requirements<br>push marking systems harder every year. Past a certain point, characters<br>start to deform \u2014 ends curving upward in the jump direction, corners burning<br>through, edges fading where the galvos haven&#8217;t settled. The leverage point<br>for fixing all three usually isn&#8217;t more laser power. It&#8217;s how you tune the<br>system&#8217;s mark, jump, and poly delays.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This technical paper walks through the full chain of decisions that determine<br>marking quality and throughput at production speed: target material<br>absorption matching, font and design choices, laser and scan head selection,<br>focusing optics, and the controller delay settings that pull it all together<br>\u2014 including Variable Poly Delay and Velocity Compensation, two optional<br>features that can deliver up to 65% throughput improvement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-key-takeaways-include\">Key takeaways include:<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Why scan head delay settings \u2014 not laser power \u2014 usually limit character quality at high speed<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>How mark, jump, and poly delays each shape a different failure mode (deformed ends, faded starts, soft corners)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>When Variable Poly Delay materially improves throughput (Mark Speed > 10,000 mm\/s) and when it doesn&#8217;t<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>What mirror aperture to specify for your application: 7 mm for coding, 10 mm flexible, 14 mm+ for industrial marking<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A practical reference example:  ti100 + MOVIA 10 mm + ScanMaster Controller, with all parameters listed. Download the full technical paper for the complete parameter recipe (mark\/jump speeds, all three delay settings, duty cycle, frequency), side-by-side character-quality comparisons across delay configurations, and an evaluation framework for matching scan head specifications to your line speed \u2014 before tomorrow&#8217;s throughput goal turns into a quality problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Technical Paper Overview Improving Character Marking Quality on High-Speed Production LinesScan head delays, not laser power, decide character marking quality at speed.Faster line speeds, smaller fonts, and tighter regulatory quality requirementspush marking systems harder every year. Past a certain point, charactersstart to deform \u2014 ends curving upward in the jump direction, corners burningthrough, edges fading [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":342,"featured_media":4442,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"card_thumbnail_id":0,"show_table_of_content":true},"class_list":["post-1792","novanta_tech_paper","type-novanta_tech_paper","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.0 (Yoast SEO v27.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Improving Character Marking Quality | Novanta<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Learn how to improve character-level laser marking quality and legibility within high-throughput laser coding systems on the production line.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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