You can save your own material settings within Mr Beam.

What does it do?

It saves the values of the current laser parameters like laser intensity, speed and number of passes for the engraving and cutting job. These values are what we call material settings because they are very dependent of the kind of material you use. When you use the same material at some point later, you can simply select your pre-saved material settings and are good to go.

How can I use it?

  • In the laser parameters screen select a material, color and thickness which is most similar to the one you're using.
  • As soon as you modify one of the settings in the lower part, new buttons appear next to your material selection:
  • Click Save custom material to open a little dialog to save your current intensity, speed and passes values of the engraving and the first cutting job. Before you hit save give it a good name and set the thickness and color values to make your material settings easy to find again once you need it.
  • To load these settings any time later simply open the laser parameters screen. You will find a new material with your name in the overview of all materials. Simply select your material, color and thickness and the laser parameters are pre-filled with your values.

Watch this short animation to see how to save a custom material setting:

Hints and useful Details:

  • These values are saved in your custom material settings:
    • Engraving Job: Laser intensity range (values for black and white), Engraving speed range (values for black and white)
      as well as from advanced settings: Pierce Time and Dithering.
    • Cutting Job: Laser intensity, laser speed, passes and pierce time (advanced settings).
      In case you have more than one cutting job in the moment of saving, Mr Beam automatically chooses the one with the strongest settings assuming that this is the one intended to cut your material all the way through.

  • If you choose a thickness value of 0 (zero) in the saving dialog, it's interpreted as "engrave only". This makes sense for a material which you know can not be cut.

  • If you enter a custom material name which already exists but a different color or thickness, these new values are simply added to your existing material. If all three values are the same (name, color and thickness), your existing setting is updated / overwritten.

  • To delete a custom material setting, click "Manage materials" on the materials overview, then click on the trash bin icon which appears on all custom materials. This deletes all settings saved under this name. It's not possible to delete pre-defined material settings.

  • If you did not save your material settings and found that they worked great with your material, you can still save them once your laser job has finished by going to the laser parameters screen again as if you were about to do the same job again. If you have nor reloaded the page in your browser or turned Mr Beam off, you still have your settings right there. Just click Save custom material and save them.

  • To export, import or backup your custom material settings click on Settings > Custom Material Settings and then proceed with Backup or Restore.


You will find more in-depth information about laser parameters in this article.