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Hey @chogardjr
The details are indeed fantastic! Have you tried any other materials?
I’ve only lightly tested some plastics but I plan to do further testing on a variety of plastics, rubbers and coated ceramics. The main purpose I needed the IR was for metals but I plan to get the most out of the IR.
The first experience with plastic is it will require knowing the type of plastic and creating a chart to know the power, interval and speed settings for each type. Some plastics easily change white making a great contrast while others will not change color at all. I suspect a change in power level might resolve this but until I get the time to do this testing I can only speculate.
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When engraving stainless steel there has to be a trade off between getting a really good dark/black and having a smooth surface. To get a more pure black as you would with a marking ink with the blue diode you have no choice but to run VERY slow making run times reach multiple hours and causing the surface to be very textured like sandpaper. When you increase the speed enough to minimize the texture you lose the dark black color and will get a more golden brown. My tests show me that 740-1000mm/min will minimize the texture without much sacrifice to darkness.
These setting drastically change depending on the type and hardness of any other metals. For example, the fold out knife was 100% power at 30,000mm/min. The kitchen butter knife was 50% power at 30,000mm/min. If you need super fine lines and tiny details on an anodized card or dog tag you don’t need much power at all but you will want to reduce the speed to reduce jolting the piece or machine around. The IR laser point is about 0.03mm so the tiniest movements will offset thin lines.
I tested different intervals and found that 0.01mm really is the best for fine lines. Any fill pieces you can get away with 0.03-0.07mm and depending on the design and material you can go up to 0.1mm but this is when you will definitely begin to notice the line intervals on the finished product.
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Great sharing, awesome!
Hi @chogardjr
Your 2W project looks amazing! We’re currently preparing to promote user-made projects, and we’d like to ask if you would be willing to grant us permission to use yours?
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Hi @Zoe
Yes that would be fine with me
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Thanks for your support!