Laser engrave tennis balls with 10W

[marcuss]

Hello

I am in the process to buy a snapmaker 2 and the 10W laser module.
One of the projects I want to do is to engrave some tennis balls. I know that as the surface is curved, the further away from the ideal focus point, the worse the quality of the engraving (to the point of no engraving happening)

Has anybody tried to do it? How far from the focus point do you think the engraving would work?

Thanks!

[xchrisd]

Hey, welcome!

I am not sure how it would finish if you engrave tennis balls but if you want to use a maximum of the possible surface you have to go deep:

Guide for Non-Planar Laser Engraving

Sorry for taking so long to get this out, but here’s a guide following how I did the non-planar engraving examples. NOTE: This is not completely comprehensive, I’m sure there’s several ways to do this, including custom post-processors, custom tools etc. This is just the method I used and the examples within are very simple, more complex use cases can be done and may require tricks not outlined here. First off, I’m not great at Fusion360 yet, my job doesn’t afford me too much time to just sit a…

I think the 10W laser has a focal point of 15mm, this means you should be able to compensate the round surface enough.

Hopefully someone else jumps in .

What Z precision is needed for laser engraving?

The height variance is a bit forgiving, so 0.2-0.5mm is fine. I’ve done slightly curved and tapered surfaces with the 10W. Considering they boast 8mm basswood cut in 2 passes, I would say you have a window of 2-3mm of near full strength (1-1.5 on either side of the focal point).

[clewis]

I’ve seen people rig up roller bearings to engrave water bottles, so the bottle rotates instead of moving. That gives them one dimension to engrave in. There are several examples in the forums, like Laser engraving on cylinder e.g.water bottle

That said, your tennis ball is fuzzy and spherical. I don’t know how well the sphere would handle the rotation without twisting in a different axis. You might need some kind of jig to prevent that, while still allowing rotation. I don’t think the laser would interact well with the fuzzy surface either. You might need to shave the tennis ball first. Otherwise, I don’t see why it wouldn’t work.

[TK4132]

One of the made rotary’s may work for this, and I am sure you could print holders that would hold the ball in a SM rotary, (like an enlarged egg rotary cup).

Having said that, if I were laser engraving a tennis ball I would constantly watch it. I think the fuzz would catch fire…