Laser engraving on cylinder e.g.water bottle

Snapmaker Showcase
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A metal water bottle makes for a nice gift and even better if you can custom engrave something on it

To get around the problem of engraving on a curved surface i had look at the Rotary attachment from mwhatch - https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2784777 - but then made something simpler to print.

For those interested have a look at


and for a video of it working see

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@gjo
Is there anything special needed in setting up the laser software?
Can you tell us the settings used for the laser in the video?
What focus method did you use?
Do you have a picture of the end result?

Sorry for all the questions but you really got me thinking.

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@D_Cubed

  1. Setting up the focus as normal. Set the Work origin
  2. Lowering the laser head until it touch the bed
    The -Z (focus) value will then be the high required above the bottle to be in focus. (made a note of this value)
    3.Move the head all up to clear the bottle and then place the bottle on the Y-Rotary bed.
    4 Lower the laser head to just touch the bottle. Set the Work origin.
    5 Move the Z up the by the Z(focus) value. Set the work origin again and you are good to go.

if you already know the distance for your focal point the start at 3.

I engraved a company logo by taking an image (jpg file) rotate it 90DEG clockwise and then convert it to a SVG file. Upload it as Vector drawing

Got good results with
Jog Speed of 300
Work Speed of 300
and
power between 70% - 100% (depending on the color of the bottle)

Hope this helps

IMG-20191205-WA0010
IMG-20191205-WA0010738Ɨ1600 34.1 KB

Image of logo on bottle

4 Likes
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@gjo

Awesome. Thank you for the detailed explanation and photo.
Now I have to find something I want to mark :slight_smile:

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Hi gjo,
Thank you very much for making this available for everyone.
I have a few questions though :sweat_smile:

this may be a silly questionā€¦ but the diameter of the roller bearings vs. the diameter of the cyclinder or bottle doesnā€™t matter right? So If I canā€™t find the same size roller bearingsā€¦ can I use slightly bigger or smaller ones?

Using your rotary rig, whats the largest diameter cylinder that it can handle? The bottles I want to engrave are approx. 6 to 7cm (roughly 2.5 inches) diameter, will they fit into your rig? And x axis is tall enough to accommodate both?

Thanks for your awesome work! :slight_smile:

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The diameter of the roller vs the cylinder does not matter apart from if it will hold the cylinder stable and how much height it will add to the total height of surface you want to engrave (top of cylinder). This height plus the focus length of your laser must fit within the z axis height restriction
The bottle in video diameter is roughly 2.5 inc
My laser focus length is about 39mm and as my setup also has a glass bed ( adding 6mm) it just works within the limit of the z axis

Hope this helps

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Thanks mate! Thats awesome info! :slight_smile:

Edit: and sorryā€¦ I actually meant Z axis in my earlier reply, not X axis :sweat_smile:
And yeah thinking about itā€¦ thereā€™s no ā€œgear ratioā€ as suchā€¦ silly me lol

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Sorry mate, just got one more question for my sanityā€™s sake :sweat_smile:
The Y-axis bed can travel back and forward 125mm, right?
My 70mm example bottle multiplied by pi (3.14) has approx. 210mm circumference. So that means with 125mm Y-axis movement I could engrave onto roughly half the bottleā€™s circumference, correct? Iā€™m just asking to double check I didnt miss anything :sweat_smile:

Or in other words: 125mm divided by pi (3.14) = 39.8mm. So a cyclider could have a max. diameter of 39.8mm if one wanted to engrave around its whole circumferenceā€¦
So Iā€™m guessing if one wanted to (most commonly) print onto half of a bottleā€™s circumference, its max. diameter could be roughly 79mm. Have I got this right?

Cheers :slight_smile:

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You are correct you will in theory only be able to engrave 125mm on the bottle so you will have to then rotate the bottle to engrave the rest.
But with the current setup one set of bearings may drop off the bed before you reach the y-stop so you would be lucky to get 100-110mm of engraving

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Thanks mate, youā€™ve been very helpfulā€‹:+1::sunglasses:

You mean ā€œy-stopā€ though, right?

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Well spotted - have fixed my post

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Hi,

Just to make it clear. The Snapmaker Orignal can laser engraved on cylinder object such as water bottles as long as I buy a rotary attachment?

Thanks

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Hi
For best results on a curved surface you want the keep the focal point of the laser the same this is what the rotary attachment will do.
You can use your Snapmaker Orignal to print the rotary attachment no need to buy - i have place the STL files on thingiverse, see my original post

2 Likes
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For Snapmaker 2.0 A250 and A350 users - see a remix of my my design
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4721687

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May I ask what length M4 bolts are needed for this?