"Frosted" engraving effect on acrylic with a 2 watt laser?

Thanks AM,

I would say start a new thread. I'm sure there would be allot of interest here in what your doing. Another place you should post would be in John's thread dedicated just for his programs in the hobbycncart forum. http://hobbycncart.com/forum/63-236-1

I did some beta testing with PicLaser Lite and Mach3. Simple program, excellent results. The posted engraving was done with PLL on Birch Ply.

Most of the beta testing we have done for John is with his full version Picengrave Pro. We suggest changes/additions and then beta test. He calls it Badgering. :D

Can't wait to see more details of your system and the 8bit engravings produced with it.

Jeff

can you change the laser out to something higher power for cutting. Maybe a 10W 1064nm or such? Would be handy to have a small laser cutter at home. Hope people use this outside or with very good ventilation as the vapor is very toxic coming off plastics of any kind. Acrylic is based on a cyanide material.

Methyl methacrylate may be formed in several ways. One common way is to react acetone [CH 3 COCH 3 ] with sodium cyanide [NaCN] to produce acetone cyanhydrin [(CH 3 ) 2 C(OH)CN]. This in turn is reacted with methyl alcohol [CH 3 OH] to produce methyl methacrylate.

Other similar monomers such as methyl acrylate [CH 2 =CHCOOCH,] and acrylonitrile [CH 2 =CHCN] can be joined with methyl methacrylate to form different acrylic plastics. When two or more monomers are joined together, the result is known as a copolymer. Just as with methyl methacrylate, both of these monomers have a double bond on the middle carbon atoms that splits during polymerization to link with the carbon atoms of other molecules. Controlling the proportion of these other monomers produces changes in elasticity and other properties in the resulting plastic.

Point is when you heat or burn it Cyanide containing products are formed.

Jeff: Fantastic work, always amazes me. I will start a new thread once we have the kickstarter launched.

kecked: You can change the laser out for higher (or lower) power. Our laser unit takes the standard 12mm laser modules and laser driver supports various voltages and current outputs. So far the most power we have tested is a 3watt 445nm diode. Our cooling setup can handle the 3watt but something like 10watts will need a different setup, maybe even water cooling.

You are absolutely correct that cutting/engraving plastics needs to be done very carefully with proper ventilation. We are including lot of safety information and warnings in our instructions.

... on my CNC-gantry I'm regularly switching between a 445nm-diode @2W max. power and two different fiber-lases with 50Watts and 85Watts (a 120Watt-type with 1/4 of the pumping diodes off) ... on my daywork I've installed one of the 120Watt-FL's into another gantry with full housing box, can be switched/exchanged too without any problem or change in software.

Actually I'm finishing a servo-scanner system with one of the FL's and will reswitch it too with a 445nm@2W-module for foam materials ;-)

Viktor

from the looks of things, your scan gap (Y-axis travel) is too large.

on my engraver, i typically do a scan gap of .08mm (minimal ~250dpi), but for high res (600 dpi) set it to .042mm.

here's some glass i did:

Attachment 43242


it's a cute little unit you've designed. i also do leather etching with my system. how do you control the soot and keep the leather from smearing after you etch it?

Attachment 43243

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Anachronicman

Hi,

Has anyone had any good results creating a frosting effect on acrylic for creating edge-lit signs?

I have has some success by painting the acrylic with matte black paint and then engraving into this. The engraving shows shows up quite well in the acrylic, but as a series of ridges/grooves when looked at closely.

thanks,
AM

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swamidog: Thanks for the info on the frosting. I'll have to give that another test soon. I haven't done enough leather work to notice a problem with soot. My machine pushes air away from the cutting zone so I suspect some of it is dispersed before settling. To minimise smearing i usually give it a good blast of compressed air. This seems to minimise it a fair bit.

Viktor: Do you have any info or site for the 50-80 watt lasers? How do they compare to CO2 of the same power?

Hi I know this is an old thread but I had a question about witch side of the painted acrylic you had face up. I assume it is the painted side.