Does anyone have any information on the 10W laser’s ability to cut or etch clear acrylic (or any acrylic)?
I want to buy the 10W laser eventually, but its ability to do acrylic well will affect how soon I plan on getting it…
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And more if you use the search. 10W doesn’t enable new any functionality the 1.6W doesn’t already have, just improves speed, cut depth, and the like.
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You can engrave but not cut clear acrylic.
The wave length of dial laser will pass through clear acrylic.
Unfortunately I had already found all of those articles, none of them mention anything about the 10W laser. However I hadn’t noticed that one said something about trying a specific type of spray that I haven’t tried yet…
Engraving is all Im looking for with acrylic. Do you have any ‘Settings’ advice?
As I mentioned there is no difference between a 1.6W blue laser and a 10W blue laser in how they interact with acrylic. If the 1.6W can’t engrave clear acrylic because the blue light passes through, then neither can the 10W.
Spray or paint is the way to go. Or a color other than clear
If it has the paper covering you can usually just leave that on and if you laser that, it will end up engraving the acrylic.
Otherwise dry erase, sharpie and dry moly spray lube are all methods that work.
-S
Oh, ok. I didn’t know that the 10W laser also had a 450nm wavelength. That would make sense then. I was just confused because the 10W can do metal when the 1.6 couldn’t, so I didn’t know if it was simply a power related difference or wavelength.
Thanks
I bought some acrylic samples, and they were paper backed. It worked! I made a sample test, etching at 100% power, 70%, 50%, and 20%. Each of those powers I set the work speed at 50mm/s, 100mm/s, 150mm/s and 200mm/s. The fill was just set to 5 (I think I’ll up that for the final product)
Its for a LED lit panel, so now I’m curious if different etching depths will affect the brightness the light comes through, giving it some sort of shading.
Does dry moly lube spray wash off? Also, does it make the etching colored or just white. I would like the end product to be white/clear.
You need a solvent to get the dry moly off. IPA works fine. Acetone and lacquer thinner the best, but that’s on glass, not sure if they melt acrylic.
Also works better on glass than acrylic because not worried about scratching as much.
It’s been a while since I’ve tried it and I wasn’t doing the lit up engravings when I was doing tests.
I’ll run some tests to see how dry moly works on clear acrylic now that i’ve got a 10w laser.
-S
I purchased some acetone because I heard that etched acrylic, but it didnt do anything to the sheets I had. Let me know how it goes! Thanks!
I got really good results from both cast and extruded using the transfer tape trick. I got the cheapo fake blackboard sticker roll for kids from home depot . I use 300mm and 20% laser for a very light engrave. You need 2 laps as the second lap almost perfectly burns away any residue. Pain is peeling the remainder off. It is put on top layer facing laser getting nearest side to laser engrave. Make your image accordingly. Hope this helps
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Good tip!
I forgot to mention this. This definitely helps. I always do 2 passes on glass for this reason.
-S
I’d been looking for some user experiences on the same thing - looking to be able to cut through 3mm acrylic. I found a German language Youtube video that seems to confirm the Snapmaker claim of able to cut 3mm black acrylic, but will not be able to cut lighter colors like orange in the video. I’d imagine that clear would perform even worse.
I liked this video a lot, and the auto-translate captions worked pretty well 
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I would have the following suggestions:
- Clear acrylic laser with 1.6W laser module.
If the lasered may then remain white, here is the following suggestion.
Buy a few chalk pens (link: https://www.amazon.de/Kreidestift-Kreidestifte-Abwischbare-Kreidemarker-Kreidetafel/dp/B07T45B17D/ref=sr_1_14?__mk_de_DE=ÅMÅŽÕÑ&crid=B85UCQ8B1HTV&keywords=Kreidestift&qid=1648876193&sprefix=kreidestift%2Caps%2C73&sr=8-14)
Paint one side of the acrylic with it, preferably so that it covers everything.
Lasersn them on the chalk color and then wash the acrylic only with plain water off ready.
Result:
- Clear acrylic milling with the CNC module.
Buy for very fine engravings a 2 cutter (flat) or (fish) end mill with 0.5mm cutting edge (link: Sorotec Online-Shop - Werkzeuge)
And mill in the desired depth into the material, have found that the inside of the milling is much cleaner because by the pitch of the cutting the material is removed much faster.
Of course, the correct parameters must be used.
Result:
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Orange should be able to be cut. I have an Xtool 10w and it cut excess amber acrylic from my enclosure with no problem. Clear and blue isn’t possible to cut.
-S
Sharing my own experiences to date, for what it is worth.
I tried some experiments with 2mm clear acrylic and the 10 Watt laser, set to cutting (not engraving).
Using the acrylic without anything applied to it did not work at all, not even a scratch.
I then tried black felt pen (marker pen). No difference at all.
I then tried applying yellow masking tape to the place where I was going to burn. This did result in marks on the acrylic. I suspect if I were to reapply the tape a number of times, it would eventually result in a significant effect, if not cutting right through. What I did not try is applying the tape also on the base of the acrylic.
What someone suggested was to spray the acrylic with black paint (ironically its acrylic paint), matt of course. I bought a can but have not tried it yet. The author said he then removes the paint using acetone. Try at your own risk as I am not sure what effect it has on acrylic.
Ive tried the chalk pens, but I havent been able to apply them perfectly evenly. The uneven distribution of the liquid chalk made the surface unreliable. If it was too thick or too thin, it wouldn’t etch.
As for the milling, I’m still learning how to generate tool paths for the CNC. But I don’t think milling will work for what Im trying to accomplish.
I tried the black paint. Ended up melting the acrylic but did not get a clean cut straight through.