Tumblers of different color

Community Laser Talk
1

Very new to this and needing some advice for engraving on Tumblers (YETI) of different colors ..

FYI: Monport 60W Mopa

A client came to me with 3x YETI bottles, Blue, Black, Pink ..

Both the Blue & Black engraves went perfectly. 2 passes to engrave, 1 pass to clean/shine.

The Pink one though, terrible results.

Using the same settings on all 3, it has taken around 10 passes to get through the coating and is ‘patchy’ at best. Areas where the engraving is thick, have removed the coating, but thinner lines have not.

I’ve removed parts of the design where it has got to the metal, so it doesn’t keep burning away on following runs. Adjusted power / speed / freq settings for the thinner lines and done maybe 20 more passes with various settings.

In the end after suffering a brain fart, I have made an error by enabling ‘wobble’ and overheated the surface, causing massive damage to the coating and destroying any chance of making it look good :frowning:

Is this a color issue, or is it just because the lines are so thin that its not getting enough time to cut through the surface coating ? .. I am a bit lost, because the other 2 on the Blue / Black also have super thing lines and they worked perfectly ..

I know this is a dumb question, but does anyone have some advice on how to get crisp / clean results on the Pink coating ? (other than test, test, test .. lol)

Can’t afford to keep replacing failed tumblers ‘testing’ .. Especially at $60 a pop here in Aus .. :frowning:

2

I too have suffered the same fate when engraving tumblers and have had to make the walk of shame into the store to replace a ruined tumbler. It sucks to lose all the profit (and sometimes more) from a job due to laser issues.

For my diode laser, it is the blue hued paint that trips me up. Also, shiny paint takes a lot more energy to engrave all the way to the metal, than flat or semi-gloss. If I am borderline on a clean engrave, I will go over the area with a clean cloth and some volatile cleaning agent. A light scrub can sometimes help break through to the metal.

My coping mechanism is to save every screwed-up tumbler (there have been many) and use them for confirming my settings before I commit to working on a customer order.

No advice given, but lots of sympathy :slight_smile:

3

What I’ve learned as one of the “secrets” of laser engraving, regardless of the method used, is that we’re working with wavelengths of light, which react differently depending on the color that absorbs that light.
Bearing this in mind, a test done with certain settings will generate different results depending on the colors.
It’s common knowledge among those more accustomed to this that a visible blue laser diode doesn’t cut (or does so with extreme difficulty) blue, white, and transparencies, while a red laser does’n cut red, white (I believe), and transparencies.

Someone here on the forum already said something similar to “test, test, test” :innocent: (Each machine has its own specific configurations.) so that the loss is as minimal as possible.

I haven’t yet dedicated myself to the laser business, but one thing I’ve long kept in mind is that if it’s a material that hasn’t been tested yet, the “testing phase” must be taken into account in the execution of a project.

That said, this adds to what commonly happens to me; The materials may not be exactly the same; sometimes they are from different batches despite having the exact same reference and model, or their construction may be inconsistent. One result is obtained in one area, a different result in another.

In my Opinion, it’s a risk that anyone seeking income has to consider.

4

I don’t do coated mugs on the fiber, they work best on my co2. The co2 can’t damage any metal.

Like @Kuth advised, it’s all goes back to the emf wavelength of the laser beam.

:grinning_cat: