Can you cut and etch colored acrylic with a diode laser?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 21 พ.ค. 2023
- I ordered a variety pack of acrylic with 6 colored sheets of 3mm acrylic. I wanted to see if we could cut through it and etch on it. Each color is going to react differently to the blue laser. We will find what works and write that down somewhere. ;-)
I have tried doing this with clear and white acrylic and found it just doesn't work well at all. I did not show any of that work in this video. The diode laser beam goes right through the clear acrylic and no burning happens unless you put something on there first that will absorb the laser power and start the melting. This allows us to at least etch on the clear. I used the same method I use with glass and started to get some parameters that work.
Here is a link to the package I purchase: amzn.to/47a782c
(As an Amazon Associate CNC @ Home earns commission from qualifying purchases.) - แนวปฏิบัติและการใช้ชีวิต
great tips
thank you for your video and your test, very useful !
Nice . Thank you so much
Orange for the win.
Agreed. The orange and the yellow turned out surprisingly well.
If i put a mask over the acrylic do you think it would work better?
Good question. With the colors that don't etch as well, putting a black coat of tempera paint could help. It won't help in burning through the acrylic, only help with etching. This method is how you can etch on white or clear acrylic.
Can you etch into acrylic that is multi-layer (black outside, and white inside)?
Nice question. I am not familiar with multi-layer acrylic. What you can do with clear and white acrylic is to paint it black and then etch it. That does work. The same process I use to etch onto glass.
yes name tag material
Do you mind sharing which variety pack you got? Thanks!
Great catch! I should have put that in the description. I will do that now. Here is what I purchased. amzn.to/47a782c
I am brand new to laser cutting, literally bought the laser master 3 a few days ago, I had no idea you could not cut acrylic or that it has issues cutting acrylic due to the melting. I wanted to cut semi-translucent acrylic, such as those fluorescent colors you see of ten on acrylic sheets. I am wondering if the issue is that the light passes through the acrylic, would putting something dark under the acrylic help?? like a sheet of black paper or some wood painted in black??
That is a good question. The reason it doesn't work so well is the frequency of the laser. It does like to pass right through. Kind of like trying to cut class. If you want to etch on the surface, you can do a couple things. One is like what you said and put something black under the material. OR paint the front or back black with tempera paint (easy cleanup compared to spray paint.) and do your etching. Not sure how well the backside method would work with translucent acrylic but it works well on the top surface. The black absorbs the heat from the laser and melts the surface enough to get a nice tech. It will not help you cut acrylic. That is totally a frequency of the laser issue and black anything won't help. Well, black acrylic cuts nicely as it is black all the way through. CO2 lasers will cut acrylic nicely as it is a completely different frequency of light.
Good luck learning your new laser and burning some projects! You have entered a fun area.
there are a lot of videos showing this very thing. black paint, black paper, or even black colored metal will all help the translucent acrylic cut. This also depends on the output power of you laser but even 10W can etch clear acrylic with the help of black media placed on it.
@@jawaring4367 - Similar to etching glass, it can be done with something dark to absorb the heat from the laser.
I was told I can only cut black acrylic with my two trees tts 55 I think its a diode laser it is very close to cutting all the way through please help which setting I shall use
@@funkymanrah - Cutting and etching can be done with many colors of acrylic. I found that multiple passes were need to cut through most colors. The laser I am using is a 10watt blue laser. Here is what worked well for each color:
Yellow: 100 mm/min at 70%, 3 passes
Green: 120 mm/min at 60%, 3 passes
Orange: 120 mm/min at 60%, 3 passes
Red: 120 mm/min at 60%, 3 passes
Blue: didn't cut well as expected as my diode laser is also blue so too much energy was reflected
Pink: 100 mm/min at 70%, 3 passes
This should help you get an idea of where you need to be power and speed wise. It looks like your laser is either a 2.5 or 5.5 watt laser. A 2.5 watt laser is going to struggle to cut through the acrylic. You might be able to get through with a 5.5 watt and multiple passes. With a lower power laser, you are going to need to up the power and/or slow the speed. You may need 4 passes to get through.
I hope this helps to get you as starting point.
I cannot cut orange with a 20W laser. Any suggestions on settings?
On my LC-50 + which is a 10 watt led laser (blue), I was able to cut through 3mm orange acrylic at 1,500 mm/min at 30% power using 4 passes. I would I would hope your 20watt laser could make short work of that kind of cut. When I cut through material, I like to focus just below the top surface of my material. Make sure your lens is clean. I just ran into an issue where my lens had gotten dirty and some basic etching was working. I hope this helps!
What laser and power did you use?
Good questions. I was using the Genmitsu LC-50 Plus. It is a 10 watt diode laser. The power and speed were all over the board. I do not like to run the laser over 80% as a general rule. The max power would have been 80% and the speeds were anywhere between 100mm/min and 3,200mm/min. The whole purpose of these tests was to find what power and speed worked best for cutting through the acrylic and for etching on the surface using this particular CNC laser. 🙂
Are you going to share your settings? Or?
I hadn't planned on it but they aren't a secret either. Here is what I found worked for my LC-50 Plus, 10 watt laser. This should give you a good starting point.
Cut through
2.50mm Black - 120 mm/min @ 80% power w/ 1 pass
2.75mm Orange - 120 mm/min @ 70% power w/ 3 passes
3.00mm Green - 120 mm/min @70% power w/ 3 passes
3.00mm Red - 120 mm/min @70% power w/ 3 passes
3.00mm Yellow - 100 mm/min @ 75% power w/ 3 passes
3.30mm Pink - 100 mm/min @ 80% power w/ 4 passes
Etching (without air assist)
Black - 2,400 mm/min @ 10% power
Blue - 1,000 mm/min @ 70% power
Green - 2,400 mm/min @ 20% power
Orange - 2,400 mm/min @ 30% power
Pink - 1,200 mm/min @ 60% power
Red - 2,800 mm/min @ 25% power
Yellow - 2,000 mm/min @ 40% power
Thank you!
@@CNCATHome
Hi, My Red Acrylic Cutting keeps ringing the fire alarm
Oh no! Is it just the red that does it? It sounds like you could use better/more ventilation. It is important to get those fumes cleared out so you aren't breathing them. I have a 440CFM exhaust fan that pulls the fumes down from the burning project through the honeycomb grate. That seems to work well.
@@CNCATHomeyes, only the Red does that, i just finished setting up the OLM2Pro, I'll get an exhaust compressor, thanks a lot, also i figured that the speed was too slow, o increased the speed and the power, then increased the number of passes to cut it, it works fine now
@@themechatronicsguy9727 - That is great! I am glad that you figured out the issue and corrected it. Have fun with your new machine!