We are mass cutting sublimation blanks & curious if there is a way to reduce the charring & soot that is on the finished blank. They come out a little powdery with black soot. We can’t possibly sit and clean each one off as we are cutting thousands. Any tweeks or tips would be greatly appreciated.
I’ve read that using a more powerful shop compressor (as opposed to the usual aquarium pump) can reduce char significantly but haven’t tried that myself yet. Presumably increased air flow rate helps sweep away cutting debris and reduces the opportunity for charring. California Air and and similar “quiet” air compressors are popular for this sort of thing and run run $200-600.
On edit: not sure what a sublimation blanks is so the above may not be appropriate unless the blanks are fairly thick and made of wood.
They are a coated white mdf board about 1/8 thick. I have a higher psi compressor running that comes out of the nozzle currently with a 2.5” lens. I might need a stand-alone nozzle just for air which I have on an old laser just need to figure out a way to attach it.
How many watts is your laser, and what settings are you using to cut, ie - speed, and power, number of passes etc.
How close to the workpiece is the nozzle? Mine is about 6mm from the wood, and that helps a lot. A previous machine had the nozzle tip about 1" away, and that was not useful at all for char reduction.
a 2.5" lens for 3mm thick material?
with a 2.5" lens I cut 12mm and thicker material.
I would use a 2" or even 1.5" lens (my laser beam is 8mm in diameter on the lens)
smaller focuspoint = more power = less char