Hi Folks,
I didn’t find a lot of detail about marking or etching stainless steel with the 10 watt laser so I thought this might be helpful. I tried a profile with movement mode set to “Line”, fill interval of 0.1mm, work speed of 450mm/min, and laser power at 100%. This is 304 SS sheet metal. I tried rinsing, scrubbing, and cleaning with alcohol and the mark seems to be pretty durable. I can feel with my fingernail that there is a definite difference in texture between the bare SS and the etched areas.
Hi srk999,
I did not use any coating. I soaked the engraved area in salt water overnight and then left it in open air for a few hours, and I was able to create some rust spots. The spots disappeared after rinsing with water and rubbing a bit. You can see some photos as follows:
I also did some testing with @mechan8 's settings.
Worked out pretty well.
The pictures show Engraving with 450mm/s 100% power and 0.1 mm Line Width on an stainless steel (18/10) pot
Here a “microscopic” picture of the engraving:
The engraving process creates some brownish dust, which can be removed with water.
I am not sure if engraving steel is a better idea over marking (ie with Molybdenum disulfide based products) as this creates a surface which can oxidize, as @mechan8 also showed with his experiments.
The rust is due to the removal of the oxidation layer of the stainless steel. You named one method that avoids this, but you might also try using something like 3-in-1 oil. It would be interesting to also apply a very thin coat before engraving, and then cleaning and reapplying after engraving. This might create a very thin carbon layer that improves the rust resistance on the engraving. It might also activate the self healing characteristics of the stainless steel to heal itself.
Hey guys, I’m not sure why but my 10w laser isn’t able to engraving on stainless steel even though it has before. Not sure what the issue is if my laser pathways are blocked or there’s a bad part in my laser. Any help would be appreciated tho, thanks. Please help?
That’s not necessarily a helpful indication. With the device thinking the door is open, it will limit laser power, i.e. the laser is visible, but so weak it cannot do anything.
I’ve no idea… Wood should certainly get marked. If you are checking for the door sensor, even plain paper would not be marked if it is the door sensor issue. Did you check the things that @sdj544 suggested?
SS works because it reacts with and oxidizes the chromium oxide.
The SM laser isn’t powerful enough to etch most metals like zinc or aluminum. You can use a marking spray like those from Cermark or OMtech, or the poor man’s version Dry moly spray lube.
With some aluminums you can remove the coatings or anodizing.
