This is my second laser module and the second time I’ve tried to etch on this piece with no luck. Can anybody help me out please?
What exactly is the object you’re trying to etch made of?
Aluminum I believe. At least that’s the way it was advertised.
You can only engrave on anodized aluminum. Or use an marking agent. For direct aluminum engraving this laser is more than a magnitude too underpowered.
Crud. That’s what I was afraid of.
Is there an actual metal marking agent I should look for?
Sorry, but I haven’t tried this before. Maybe someone else here has experience with this…?
No personal experience, but other posters here have had some success with dry moly lube. You could also paint the object—the laser has no problems stripping paint off metal. Some people have also managed to engrave metal using CNC with cautious settings.
Give dry moly lube a shot.
I use this for etching most things. Particularly metal and clear objects. It provides a great uniform contrast for the laser. It cleans off easily with IPA too. I would recommend running it about as slow as you can for work speed (20 mm/min) or so, and doing a multitude of passes.
In all honesty though, I would just wait for the 10W laser to drop and use that (still with the moly lube though). It’ll make your life a lot easier.
Be warned, do it in a very well ventilated area. It smells like a burnt transmission when it’s lasered.
I was under the impression that the dry moly lube only worked with stainless steel (best?)
Haven’t tried it with anything else though personally.
With stainless you don’t need to run it slow. Once the moly is burnt away/transformed it’s gone. So you can run 1000mm/m no problem (Always 100% power).
With any type of coating I usually do two passes. One burns away the coating and then the 2nd burns away any residue. A wipe down with IPA or Acetone takes care of any residue and gets you to bare metal. (Although sometimes I prefer the look before wiping it down)
-S
There is another product out there called CerMark, but it’s very expensive particularly in my part of the world. It’s used by one of the bigger laser companies