I’m getting delivery on a 50W chinese co2 laser this coming week. I am planning on using it mostly for engraving powder coated tumblers. I have mostly just used diode laser before where I could sometimes get the engravings done but not always. For my diode laser I was running 100% power at around 450mm/min. Does anyone have decent starting power and speed settings I can use to engrave some tumblers with a 50w co2 laser? I know all powdercoating isn’t the same thickness for all cup/colors and all laser are not the same. Just looking for a ballpark that I can start at and increase/decrease after my first tests. Thanks for any info or help in advance!
250/50% at 500lpi
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Thank you I will use that as my starting values. I’m going to at least enjoy not having to wait hours for my engravings to finish and half the time not even burn through lol
You really need to set aside a sacrificial unit for doing a power/speed matrix on.
I said to use 500lpi, because I find striations show up much more on coated metal than any other surface. You can probably get away with half that (and half the elapsed time) by going 1-2mm out of focus.
I use a 4" lens, almost always, so my focus sweet spot has a much greater depth than the typical 1.5-2" lenses offered on turnkey retail machines.
That being said, even a 2" lens offers a huge range of depth-of-focus compared to a diode.
I rarely (read, never) use my rotary but you do need to be aware of going too fast and incurring slippage, depending on the model and how it rotates the object.
Yeah I have a few spare tumblers I can use for tests on. I was using around 317.5 lpi with my diode laser. But I can test with that too. And yeah this one is coming with a hotdog style roller, but I have a chuck rotary I was using with my diode laser on my cnc so I may use that instead of the hotdog style one if it will fit inside the new laser enclosure. And I will keep the out of focus idea in mind too.
300lpi will be dandy, if you were happy with the result on the diode.
it’s all about light pressure/mm2.
If you have fewer lines, you need more power or less speed.
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