Can anyone give me any suggestions as to why I’m struggling to engrave this? It’s had 2 passes at 15ma at 100mm/s and it’s only managed to turn it a brown colour. I’ve tried cleaning it with various things including acetone.
whats the substrate material, aluminum?
Joe’s right, the material makes a huge difference. By the way, I really like the way it looks as it is.
Looks like a anodized aluminum cell phone case. If it is, the only good results I have with anodized aluminum is to go really slow. The test I did with black anodized, it was around 7mm/sec at full power. It turned the black into grayish-white.
To be honest, I’m not entirely sure what the material is, my guess would be anodised aluminium - which is why I bought it ;). I do like the way it looks and as its for me thats ok, it was more of a question for the future as I’m trying to get prepared for more items like this and the tablet I engraved last week came out much more like I’d expect.
yea the co2 wavelength is really inefficient at marking metals, most of the energy gets reflected. it does burn off anodizing though, but like jim said steady and slow is the way to go
@Jeff_Lamb anodizing is a process that turns the aluminum surface into a hard protective top layer. This layer can be dyed many different colors in the process. The laser effectively burns off the dye color but still leaves the hard protective coating. Good results need decent laser power.
ah, ok. I guess my understanding of anodising is way off - time for some materials research. Thanks.
@Jeff_Lamb be aware that some “fake” anodized aluminum is just paint. Our low power CO2 lasers can’t physically etch (ablation) aluminum or other metals. When you laser anodized metal, you really can’t feel the surface difference. It’s just the dye color being burned off by the high localized heat.
You will need a fiber laser to truly etch metal or a very high powered CO2.
I think the case you did looks great.
Just to add a small point to what has already been said: If you haven’t already, you may want to check the focal point on your laser. In my experiments with anodized I experienced similar results as the ones you have shown until I raised my cutting surface. I agree with Jim though, It looks great even as it is!