Are you asking whether it’s possible to have them laser cut, or are you asking whether you can do this with some particular kind of hobbyist laser that you own?
Assuming you do cut through, what is your plan for making islands not fall out? Like the middle of “e” in “Left” or the two middle parts of “B” in “Back”, etc?
Hi Michael
Yes your right. I did do another project where we made a monitor station with cut out numbers in mild steel and had to make them larger to account for this. It did turn out nice but this time we want to take it up a notch or two. I don’t own a laser and was looking to get some advice as I would be creating the dxf file for cutting. Haven’t worked out who to get it cut from yet. I did see, online last night, a guy who made his own flight simulator cockpit instrument illuminated panels and was very impressed. I have decided I will go down this route. The only difference will be that I will use cct led’s so I can adjust the color temperature. here is a link to what I saw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HEtd_Xd0qQ
Also this opened me up to a whole instrument panel community. pretty good.
I think direct cut-through method will be alright. Font choice matters more than people expect. Avoid Times New Roman or script fonts. Use Bold geometric sans fonts.
So the most important question unanswered..
What is your plan for islands?
Something in the Gorton family or B612 are good font choices, but both still have islands.
Hi Michael
There now wont be any islands as I am now going to just laser engrave and not all the way through.
One possibility for backlighting would be to use ACM and engrave it, and cut away windows in the aluminum on the back side. I have no experience trying this, but it might give you backlighting. However, I’d do it with CNC engraving, not laser, in that case; I can’t imagine that working well with a laser.
If you want clean-looking light laser-engraved text on dark-finished aluminum, you can start with flat dark anodized panel and burn off the anodizing where you want letters.
