Hi there,
Has anyone successfully managed to engrave aluminium business cards using a 40w diode laser?
I have tried numerous settings, speed adjustments, power, directional passes, etc without any success.
The finer texts are not legible, and in some instance even get burnt away. I have also had instances where the oxidised layer is not completely removed.
40W diode laser….is that “machine power” or optical power. I engrave aluminium business cards ( mostly black and but even blue coloured ) successfully with 5.5W and 11W OPTICAL power.
Usually 2000 mm/min at 85% power for most designs on either laser module, but run lower power, higher speed for complex ( QR code for example ) Important to keep heat generated at a minimum as cards tend to warp / bend, so try and go as low as possible with power setting.
Have found significant variation in quality of aluminium cards ….. wrt to coating and material thickness. Some sold as “anodised” but actually just black paint !
I usually use a few cards for setting up ( cheap enough ) before running a batch.
Take care.
Thanks for the reply Andre. I’m still very new to the whole laser machine, so many things are still Greek haha. The Diode laser is a 40W Laser. It is the Creality Falcon2 Pro S 40W. I do have a 1.6W laser, but I was hoping to use the 40W for faster production.
Where I am from we don’t have access to many options when it comes to the cards or other items to engrave, so I have to admit my business cards are bought on TEMU. The quality on these do seem decent though.
I’ve gone through a number of cards to test speeds, power, etc but I am just not finding the detail I want for the cards. On the 1.6W the detail was not a problem, the problem there was time.
I do business cards at 10000 mm/sec and 40% power on a 40 watt diode laser with good results.
Here’s a jig i made to hold multiple cards for engraving
Make the jig this use it to place your designs
Business Card Jig New.lbrn2 (21.3 KB)
Business Cards Sign Woodworks New Front.lbrn2 (1.4 MB)
Once you make the jig. Turn on the Red 02 layer and use that to position it
And what kind of business cards are you referring, anodized, brushed or polished?
I have done a few black anodized business card with my 5ish W diode laser and used very low power with speeds around 2000ish mm/min. To much power burns and discolor the aluminum.
Thanks for this. I will take a look.
Are you using bi-directional passes? Etc?
It is really just my very small fonts that seem to be the problem.
You can look at the file to see the settings
Thanks again. I do think the cards I am using are Anodized. Although there isn’t a clear description on the box. They look the same as the card you posted images of. Another question, what do you use to clean off the left over residue after engraving?
Just wipe it off with a rag. A lot of the quality depends on the color. Some colors burn better than others. Silver card wont burn unless coated them with something. Nothing for the laser to react too. The cards actually look better than the picture shows
It’s possible that the issue is your laser spot is too large on a 40 watt machine for the detail you’re trying to achieve. Running some tests, such as line interval might help determine if that’s the problem.
Compared to your 1.6w laser which has a dot size of maybe .04mm, expect around 0.15mm (for 40W) or 0.1mm (for 20W) lasers. A dot of .15mm is about 170LPI, compared to maybe 635LPI for the other laser.
There is no question the term “detail” has to be loosely applied to the 40w laser. Here, I call my 10w laser (.06 dot) a Scalpel, and the 40w laser the Chainsaw.
That says it all…
Can you share a picture of those cards?
Maybe we can retrieve some information about it despite the more important details have been addressed.
I managed to get the detail better on the cards, but it required me raising the cards off the work area (The Falcon2 Pro S doesn’t have an adjustable laser).
The cards look exactly like the ones shared higher up in the thread.
Try the slope test for height adjustment. Put a card to engrave on a slope when it is both higher and lower than you think it should be.
Then draw a series of lines across the length of the slope and as it gets to the sweet spot it will be the most precise.
You can change the power (duty cycle a.k.a. pulse widths) from 10%→ 100% and the speed range for each line and find what works best for you. Power is a fuzzy thing on a diode. The laser is on or off at 12V or 24V or whatever yours runs at. The controller generates a series of pulses to “average” out the ON/OFF time to the percent you ask for. The speeds also determines how long the spot takes to move.
There is no best for all, you will find your own best settings based on color, material, type of engraving, substrate (how fast does it deal with the heat), etc…
Keep REALLY good notes on what you are doing settings wise so you can easily repeat your wins and avoid more losses.
Also note that the 1.6W through about 6W are usually a single diode laser. Everything above that is a stack of 5W-6W lasers they are trying to focus in a single spot. The single laser will almost always be more precise with a smaller spot due to mechanical assembly and focus physics…
My 48W laser works very well for engraving my cards. I do them all in one pass, turn them over for the other side, wipe them clean with a damp rag. See pic for settings; generally, 4,500mm/m at 30%, 5,500mm/m at 25%, this area of powespeed works for me….
As @baricl1317 mentioned in the last picture shared, the card looks better than the picture. Only when magnified de small imperfections can be noticed.
My laser machine backlash is huge, even so I made a few identification labels for industrial machines.
The imperfections are only noticed when looked very close or magnified, and my laser machine as a lot of backlash.
For identification labels suits, for presentation cards maybe not.
Just take a look at the pictures I share.
Thanks to everyone for the replies here. You help is greatly appreciated. I managed to improve quality on my engraves, but this was only after raising my work piece of the work area.
This is where my concern now lies is that my laser’s height is not adjustable, it is fixed. It is advertised as being auto focus etc, but this seems to be causing more problems than anything else.
The new Falcon2 Pro S is meant to be a better machine than just the plain Falcon2 Pro, but I am starting to wonder due to the height adjustment issues.
Are you sure about this? I have never seen a diode laser that the laser module cannot be raised and lowered. I looked at this machine on creality’s website and there are clearly adjustment screws on the right side of the module.
Post a photo of your machine showing the right side of the laser module on the gantry.
