I always wanted to play with a lasercutter, so I bought one recently. I have been enjoying basic cutting shapes and engraving pictures, but I wanted to do something more exciting with depth.
I created a simple pattern of concentric circles with the idea being that they step down, so that the outer circle is engraved deeper that the inner most circle.
Using the settings my priter recommended got a reasonable result (60%/4000) but the acrylic metled. I ran the test on Lightburn for the material and it looked like 30%/10800 gave a good result without burning.
I had 5 circles, the first at one pass, the last at 5 passes, and there isnt any noticable height difference.
If I increase the number of passes, is the engraving going to get deeper or does it not work like that? Im new to lasercutting so I dont really know material science yet!
I also dont think diode lasers are good at acrylic in this use case, but its what I have and I am not shelling out for a Co2 or Fiber just yet.
Welcome to the forum and congratulations on your new laser.
As you rightly write, acrylic is not an ideal material to start a diode laser career with. Acrylic is a bit of a special material that you can and will play with later, after you have tested your skills with the more “standard”, simpler materials such as wood, plywood (laser-suitable!) and MDF.
You can easily achieve the desired result from your experiments with these materials.
Laser processing takes place with light in different frequencies and some frequencies are not suitable for e.g. transparent materials.
You will do many tests in different materials and learn the possibilities of your specific laser, it is an important and very interesting process, in my opinion.
For this effect, acrylic is probably the wrong material to learn on with a 10W blue diode, like @bernd.dk says.
More passes can cut/engrave deeper when the material absorbs the laser well, but clear acrylic doesn’t absorb blue diode light efficiently. Extra passes may just melt, haze, or distort the surface rather than produce the clean, stepped depths you want.
I’d test the same 1–5 pass pattern on wood or MDF first, then come back to acrylic once you know the method is working.
I know it works with plywood because I have tested it. I am looking at acrylic to make earrings that are a bit more durable.
I am not using clear acrylic because I know that its not really a suitable material, I am using black acrylic.
I have set up some more tests to see if different settings will achieve the result I want, and if not I will move back to just making 3D things out of wood.
Various types are available and obviously I’m very British, so my links are useless outside of the UK.
I’ve made lots of good stuff with acrylic with this.
I’m not really a diode person though, so my experience is with larger full-throated CO2 laser, but even then, I would etch away concentric rings, I’d build them up.
Whilst I might be miss imagining what you’re doing, it is a bit like 3D printing flat sheets… with a laser there has to be a better way?
I have made several hundred pairs of earrings. The material that I have found works the best with my own 10w diode, is a wood product called Romark. It does need several passes to cut clean through, but the material is durable and available in a selection of colors. Not sure what the available equivalent would be for our cousins across the pond, however.
So I tried cross hatching my design, in 1,3,5,7 passes, and 1, 5, 10, 15 passes.
Neither were noticably different.
I suspect once the acrylic has been engraved, its harder to engrave again, so it needs to be done in one pass. So I will be using it for something else!
Still it was a good learning experience, thanks for the input all, its been really helpful.
Depends on the job, although CO2 is the best tool. I did a cutout in 1/8” red transparent acrylic with a 10w diode and multiple passes. There were a lot of stringy fibers along the cut, but it worked.
It did establish that my viewing windows using the same material would actually block UV light from the laser.
They have have a big “American Made” logo in the website, so availability should not be an issue.
