Powder coated cups

Community Laser Talk
1

Cannot seem to get a clean bright finish with some black powder coated cups.
Tried various speed/power settings, increasing and decreasing both separately.
Cleaning it with warm soapy water, still a dull finish…
Using a Boss LS1630 (70w) machine…
email address

Would appreciate some suggestions, please…

thanks
Bill in Atlanta

2

I use LA’s Totally Awesome cleaner and a towel. I used to get it from the dollar tree store.

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3

can ou get it locally ?

4

Dollar tree !!! awesome, thanks

5

I’ve also seen it at Home Depot.

6

Great, HD and Lowes are close…

7

I don’t believe the burn is cutting through all the coating…

8

My go to setting with my 60w. Sometimes it doesn’t get it all but it’s rare.

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9

Or I should say, it appears that way…

10

Try the cleaner first. Sometimes it takes a bit of elbow grease :rofl:

11

Thanks,
I’ll try those settings…

12

Thanks, but not even close… I’ll use it as a starting point and go from there…

13

Ill pick some up tomorrow and try it with these settings…

14

Different laser different settings. This is just what works for me.

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15

That’s exactly where I’m trying to get to !!!

16

It is possible to over-expose the cut and burn the underlaying metal. Take one of your failed attempts and use it to dial in the settings. Note - just burn a small square or circle, you don’t need to burn the whole design over and over. I found that shop temperature can affect the results, also. I run the heater to get the shop up to around 40 degrees before I start the tumblers. If your stock material is very cold, there maybe some problems. I run a diode, and have had some trouble with different color paint not reacting like I expect. Blue is especially resistant to my blue light laser.

If you still have trouble - keep the power the same, and drop you speed by 50%. Then double the number of passes. Two test runs will show you which direction you need to move to get better results.

This image shows a cup that needed a second pass on the bottom lettering and outline…due to the taper and the power falling off as the laser lost focus. I cleaned off the residue with a solvent and it still had some scum left on it. The design has some errors, but that is on me.

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This cup was over exposed on purpose to darken the engraving.

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17

Hey Jeff,
I picked up a bottle of the LA’s cleaner, entered your settings
and the end result was great… thanks so much for your input !!!

Blessings,
Bill

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