Confirming: I should not cut vinyl adhesives with diode laser?

Community Laser Talk
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Thanks to this forum, I just learned that I’m not supposed to use a laser to cut vinyl, as it creates a highly dangerous (to both me and my machines) chloride (?) gas.

I have used my diode laser (1.5W) to cut stickers out of adhesive sheets like these.

I think most of the threads I’ve seen refer to a) cutting a thick sheet of vinyl like flooring, and b) using a CO2 laser, so I wanted to double check my situation, since these things cut like butter, and not much smoke comes off at all.

So just to confirm: The same warning applies to cutting thin sheets, and it doesn’t matter how low the wattage is, it’s still going to generate a problematic gas, correct? Does it only happen above certain wattages / temperatures?

Thanks!

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It is by melting and burning of PolyVinylChloride hydrochloric acid is released. The fumes are very aggressive to people and machine parts, especially metals.
There are a number of other types of plastic that are also toxic but pvc is the worst in my opinion.

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