R30 Won't Cut Through Paper Backing on Acrylic

Community Laser Talk
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I recently bought an Atomstack R30 V2 laser for my A10 Pro and I noticed that it will engrave acrylic just fine without the paper backing, but it won’t actually engrave well WITH the paper backing on like my original diode laser will. To do that, I have to engrave at very low speeds and then it more melts the plastic instead of engraving it. Is this to be expected?

I have been engraving acrylic for a while with the original diode laser and it cuts through the paper which I use as a mask to then paint the engraving. With the R30, it doesn’t do that. Why is that?

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If this is the machine:

Then these bullet points are relevant:

  • Born for Metal & Plastic Engraving
  • Suitable for fast and fine metal engraving, as well as non-metallic materials such as varnished wood furniture, ABS, and plastic

The key difference is the wavelength: materials absorb and reflect infrared light differently than they do near-UV light.

So 1 µm IR light bounces off a layer of paper that absorbs 445 nm UV light just fine. :grin:

Which is why you could use the protective paper as a paint mask: UV(-ish) light burned the paper, but pretty much bounced off the plastic.

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