I volunteer at our local animal shelter and they have various auctions and fundraising events throughout the year to help keep the lights on and the food bowls full.
I was asked if I would be willing to do a set of wine glasses with their logo for one of their auctions.
(My answer was yes)
You have done just fine, the glasses look good and the logo itself is clearly visible without being flashy like some advertising glasses I have seen elsewhere.
Very nice. Would you be willing to document your process?
Settings, rendering method, how you chucked the glass, any special coatings?,…
Glasses were done on a chuck type rotary. Rotary has been “pimped” out with a few minor mods, like leveling feet so I can tip the rotary up at an angle to get the glass surface parallel to laser travel and a cone at the “dead end” to hold the open end of glasses. Somewhere there’s a “rotary mods” thread that shows it. Ahh, here it is: Rotary chuck mods or accessories
80 watt Ruida red&black. Speed around 400mm/s. Power for these was 17%. DPI = 300. Power requirement can vary a LOT between different types of glassware. Too much power seems to lead to chipping around the edges of designs and letters. Go easy.
No coatings. I wash and dry the glass, put it in the chuck and blast it.
I usually use a 2” or even a 2-1/2” lens.
When I started, I used 1-1/2”because in theory the dot size is smaller and resolution better.
The problem is that glassware can be amazingly un-round. You can put a glass in the chuck, measure for perfect focus, then rotate the glass 45° and find you’re 2 mm or more out of focus because the glass is slightly oval or has a side with a bit of a flat spot. Add to that the fact that a lot of glassware (like wine glasses) can have a lot of vertical curvature and that adds greatly to the focus problem. You need a pretty good depth of focus to do glassware.
It took me quite a while to figure out decent settings for my machine. Dollar store glasses are good practice. I learned a lot from wrecking $20 in cheap glassware.
