Hi All,
We are very new to laser engraving and still finding our feet.
We have an urgent need to laser engrave Black Plastic Key Heads with small lettering (1.5-2mm per character), but after playing with the settings we are still coming up with either an acceptable orange shade or the lettering has burned black. whilst the orange is okay, we obviously want to have a better result if possible
Any beginners tips for plastic engraving would be a huge help!
Do you know what kind of plastic it is?
There are a number of videos on doing synthetic/plastic gun stocks or magazines for firearms, many on just plain plastic.
Thats a huge help! Thanks
Unfortunately we don’t know what kind of plastic it is and the manufacturer isn’t being too helpful on the topic either
That’s one of the issues when you lase things… 
Please post your work, many of us like to view it.
Good luck
Much Better!
The “CJ - VRS31- 1” is our work. The smaller font characters are direct from the factory done with a CO2 laser.
I dropped the Power down to 20% and Speed of 650.00 Freq 50 kHz and opened the line interval up to 0.0500 to help prevent any burning and it came out really well
That guys videos are extremely helpful as we also have to engrave Brass and Nickel Silver alot aswell. I definitely have some Holiday viewing to get through 
Very nice and thanks for posting it…
Would you mind supplying more information, such as settings and F type lens used?
It would have made it much easier if this was in a post…
Good luck
Sorry Mate, still getting used to all of this.
Using Lightburn Software and F-Type Theta 1064nm/50w Lens, I ran 2 layers. 1 line at 650.00 Speed, 20% power and 50kHz for 1 pass followed by a Bi-Directional fill at the same settings with an interval of 0.0500 mm for 2 passes, which seemed to make the difference from my previous attempts (Pictured)
Thanks, that always helps.
The problem with lenses on these… some people state they have a 300mm lens, but what they mean is square mm in coverage… My 300x300mm lens is marked F420mm, so it’s sometimes hard to determine what they actually mean.
I’ve found a real difference between lens length and their effect on the material… So I always ask…
Thanks for the layer screen shot.
I have a need to ablate/excavate a square hole in plastic. About a 4mm by 5mm square hole that doesn’t fully penetrate the material. Does anyone have any recommended settings for my fiber laser (60W MOPA). I need to remove material in this case and not color it. Thanks.
