We have a k40 machine with extraction unit that is filtering the dust and with extra water cooling system. We engrave ceramic tiles. If we engrave more tiles after eachother or sometimes even in one tile (we always go frome above to bottom) then the quality is getting worse. I think it is because of the dust (we go away from the extraction point), but it is also when we engrave with the lid open. In the attachment some pictures.
Are you using a coating or is this a raw tile? If you are not using air assist and suspect the dust is the issue then i would recommend an air assist or air nozzle blowing onto the engrave area to remove the debris while engraving.
I’m directly engraving on the glaze of the tile. And I use air assist in the nozzle and did also some test with air assist from the side of the tile.
Co2 on porcelain only breaks the glass. Part of the issue is you’re not penetrating the glass coating and reaching the material below consistantly. We’ve done this with fiber, but I wouldn’t even attempt it with co2. You can’t really cut glass.
Thank you for all your reactions.
Ste strange thing is that the machine has done it quite good for a while, see als the tiles below. If I use less power then it will not go through the glass properly, so i need this power.
I might be wrong but that looks like excess air…Do you use air for engraving, cause when I use air when engraving I get that white look I see in your pictures, but when I turn of the air lovely black engraving… Just my 2 cents…
I’ve tried to follow this, but I’m not sure of what you want as a finished product.
A fiber can give a reasonable result with porcelain tile, but a co2 is the wrong machine. Having worked with a lot of porcelain tile, they vary so much. Even from the same place, that I have to use the known configuration values as a guesstimate of where to start looking for the right effect.
Make sure you use something like steel wool to go over the engravings. Co2 leave shards of glass that can come loose days, even months later and end up in their hands or fingers… glass is hard to find there.
