I have an Ikier pro max with a 48watt blue laser and I picked up an infared 2 watt 1064nm head a $240 Mr Carve. It was sadly only available in 12 volts instead of the 24 that the unit uses but I grabbed a NEJE tesyer board and wired it in
I have it roughed in after machining an adapter to mount it to the z mount.
I need to do a couple of other things but it is running.
What are the speeds and power people are using for these 2 watt Infared lasers to etch materials. does anyone have a material library for one of these that i could start off with and modify for my equipment.
Nom I need to get a setup to allow it to autofocus ā¦ LOL but with the motorized z on this its pretty fast to do
it is a start anyways. I am currently testing engraving on a brick at 16 mm/s and 2100%t with 4 passes and monitoring with a camera to see how many passes. with a blue laser it produces a black and so farthest produces a whiteā¦
Have not tried brick, but some rocks give black and some show white. Not a geologist, so I do not know why.
I think blue lasers heat by shaking the molecules. IR lasers are using actual heat, so that might be why the 2w IR appears to have more kick than the 10w UV laser.
lol dam* fingers and brain I wish you could overdrive it that much LOL.
yeah the sand in the brick changes the output color. with the 48 watt blue my tan bricks come out white while some reds come out almost black and some other reds come out in a shade of grey LOL
yeah bricks are pretty good. my local community (less then 150) just put in a veteranās park and they want me to etch the bricks
With the Infared the light tan bricks etched dark grey, while the red did a light greyā¦ I am wondering if more passes would darken it up on the red bricks
We have one of these where I live, but just a memorial at the marina. I thought the markings were black paint, but I will examine them closer when I get back home.
Sometimes they are precision sand blasted sometimes touched up with paint but always imbedded/inset from the surface in some way. Fiber lasers do real well for it as I understand and the 48 diode seems to smash it real good
I think the silica content of the brick has a lot to do with it, these are out of my 1909 built basement so i donāt know the silica content of them in comparison to modern bricks and I am sure it varies. Evan at 24 (I accidentally tried some at 24 when I accidentally activated the 24 watt since it is a mechanical switch grbl would learn that control) it did pretty well hopefully diode lasers will evolve to that variable controlā¦
Could be. I did some flat river rocks (another posting called Fried Some Rocks!) and got three versions, black, white, and barely at all. 10w ICube on that one. Never could guess the outcome except for the ones that look like granite. I wonder if less dense got better results.
The traditional red brick is made from shale and has iron oxide content. The tan bricks are silica mud but many have color additives.
Maybe depending on location and availability of ingredients, the red bricks are also color enhanced.
Oxide solution should be pretty well absorbed by brick and varied speed & power could possibly give good blacks or different color or tone effects.
If the engraving were deep enough an oxide solution could be applied into that area onlyā¦to avoid staining the surrounding brick and further lasering applied to bake in the effect.
As we saw from the slate example in the āI fried some rockāsā conversation, a variable tone if not color was achieved by use of altered settings.
I donāt believe these red bricks have had any dies considering they are early 1900 construction, I have found kiln dried and sun dried bricks offer different results.
Locality and how modern of brick i am finding is a factor. There is a company that makes special bricks for laser etching and I have no idea what they do different in the bricks
So the process of vitrification by kiln drying makes the bricks smoother, more water resistant and built up using mortar. The sun dried onesā¦not so much.
The iron oxide powder is usually red but can be got in black, brown, or yellowā¦ish.
The laser-brick bricks/vaneerās are nice and uniform and probably made specially but demand would have to justify buying in bulkā¦around here they could be sat in the yard quite a while.
Someone spoke about high heat in the work area so anything other than industrial equipment could add to the overheads. I dont know how much engraved bricks fetch in todays market, but after all costs n taxes it could get priceyā¦but lighter design marking on cheap āend of lineā stock & added oxide might keep the price down a bit.
Co2 looked very affective
I still like the random rocks āwhere availableā and there must be a setting that suits different types.
