I have a Atomstack A5M40 and I am looking for help on proper settings for a white painted steel mug, that I have applied the Cermark Black Laser Marking Spray
If you are wanting to just remove the white from the mug, you should be able to do that. The titanium dioxide in the paint will do the heating work for you.
If you are using the Cermark to help blacken the white paint, good luck with that. Let us know if you succeed.
Knowing nothing about your laser power or the paint on your mug, guessing at the settings would be useless. You may have to scrap a mug or two using the Lightburn Materials Test tool to determine the best settings.
Cermark needs to be on metal or glass for it to bond … I use LBT100, which is similar… It won’t bond to your coated mug. I don’t know how well Cermark works with you type of laser… most of these coatings address co2 machines.
You can try and lase off the white… You have a relatively low power ssl (diode) and the mug, being white, will make it even more difficult…
@MikeyH these coatings don’t use TiO2, it’s something like molybdenum oxide … Here’s Cermark page.
I believe you are correct, but I was referring to the white acrylic. I have no idea why black acrylic works as well.
If the product has TiO2 in it, then a lasing it can bond it to glass or metal. If it’s just black, the pigment heats up, heating the glass, which shatters… no bonding here, just thermal stress.
I think the white painted mug are those that just have paint on them. I buy them from the dollar store here for practice.
Some kinds of paint doesn’t include TiO2, so it’s ineffective for the NTM.
Here’s what i do. If the stainless steel mug is pre painted. I don’t apply Cermark Black and just cut the design on the painted surface. It will cut through the painted surface and the design will be silver. For un painted stainless steel mugs i apply the Cermark and it will react with the Cermark and the design will be black. For either one on my Atomatack X40 Pro 24/48 watt laser . I use the 24 watt setting with Speed at 2400 and Power at 40% and it comes out well.
I havent tried using Cermark over the paint on the painted mug to see if it comes out black, you would have to try it. I’ve done glassware on the rotary using Cermark as well with the same settings and it comes out excellent. But the design will not be black. The laser doesn’t really etch the glasses or tumblers. It just reacts with the Cermark and bonds the design to the tumbler or glassware.
Harbor Freight has Unpainted 20 oz Stainless Steel travel mugs for $5.99. I use a lot of these
I would be truly surprised if the TiO2 bonded to the brittle glass.
This is TiO2/water from the co2… have one almost identical using lbt100 and the fiber.
It’s a porcelain glass tile… so it does work on glass
Interesting. I will do a NTM on plain glass and see what happens. I have both a 100x digital microscope and a 1200x optical microscope.