What is Ozark using to coat their 30 oz cups?

[John Kleiber]

My usual settings for my 60w are 1 pass, 12 power, 400 speed for powder coat.
I lased a customers black painted 30 oz Ozark Cup using the same settings and it takes 4 passes!
The main problem which required 2 more passes was an increase in paint thickness at the bottom of the "E"

At any rate, it turned out alright, but if anyone has a suggestion as to proper settings, I would like to know.

ozark_30oz_stainless_steel_cup.jpg

[John Lifer]

12% power? Not nearly enough! My powder coating takes 60% of my 80 watt laser to cut thru at 225 speed.. Bought a black ozark trails the other day and will try it soon, but doesn't look very thick to me.

[John Kleiber]

12% power? Not nearly enough! My powder coating takes 60% of my 80 watt laser to cut thru at 225 speed.. Bought a black ozark trails the other day and will try it soon, but doesn't look very thick to me.

Thanks for the suggestion. Truth be told, the powder coating I lased 12% power were cups I had done. Any higher power and SS shows slight signs of yellowing.

I will check around and see if I can find some coated Ozarks and test. I am not sure what the coating is though and intend on visiting Ozarks site to see if there is any reference to the coating.

[Michele Welch]

The coating on the Ozarks is unlike anything I've found. I don't have a rotary for my 80w to laser them, so I'm still doing it the old fashioned way and mask and sandblasting it. I used the most aggressive sand I have and it barely scratched the surface. My husband tried to sand it off so he could powdercoat it and it took him forever to do it. It isn't worth it to me, just get the plain and powdercoat.

[Kev Williams]

Almost looks like FlexSeal.

[chris szlachetka]

These cups are form molded and will never be perfectly straight across the flats. I don't trust my Epilog Z probe for some jobs and this is definitely one of them. I run the manual gauge from one side to the other on the rotary until I feel is best. I laser my cups at 100% power, 75% - 100% speed (40W) twice when I don't have time to GooGone them. Stuff works but not as good as the Goo Off. The problem with the Goo Off is it leaves a cloudy white sheen to the paint. I'm guessing the clear coat is different from most of the other powder-coat stuff I engrave. I've also used masking tape for one pass runs and used the Goo Off to remove the tar with very little seeping. I'm still looking for the perfect solution to remove the sticky tar after one pass without leaving the cloudy sheen.

[Jeff Body]

These cups are form molded and will never be perfectly straight across the flats. I don't trust my Epilog Z probe for some jobs and this is definitely one of them. I run the manual gauge from one side to the other on the rotary until I feel is best. I laser my cups at 100% power, 75% - 100% speed (40W) twice when I don't have time to GooGone them. Stuff works but not as good as the Goo Off. The problem with the Goo Off is it leaves a cloudy white sheen to the paint. I'm guessing the clear coat is different from most of the other powder-coat stuff I engrave. I've also used masking tape for one pass runs and used the Goo Off to remove the tar with very little seeping. I'm still looking for the perfect solution to remove the sticky tar after one pass without leaving the cloudy sheen.

Have you tried reducing your power. I was engraving at 65 power with a 60w tube and pretty fast speed and got the same tar.
I dropped my power down to 45p and it seems to engrave a whole lot cleaner. I now get just a very light film that comes off with simple green and a magic eraser.

[chris szlachetka]

I've dropped it to 75% a few times, but didn't notice a difference. Maybe I'll try 65% on my next run and see how it goes. Thanks !

[Martin Boekers]

JDS has a nice selection of "Polar Camel" Drinkware. they appear to be powder coated, but laser nicely. I'm 120 watt
75sp 60Pwr 400dpi.... They have been selling pretty good. I do take Windex and a Magic Eraser to them afterwards to clean
us the burn. They turn out nice!

[John Lifer]

Just engraved a black 20 oz this afternoon. it cut very easy, used 50% at 250mm/s and probably could have cut at a 40% power. btw, denatured alcohol cuts the crud easy

[Julie Reynolds]

Aren't you afraid that you won't get it perfectly lined up again running twice. We've found that it can be slightly off the second time around and try to just run everything one time. However, we have to use a rubbing compound and scrub hard to get off the residue after rubbing DNA on it. The Ozark Trails just do not laser nicely. I have been running at 100P and 20, 19, 18 S with 800 F and 1000 DPI. I tried lower power and faster speed, and it seems to not take enough off. Every powder coat seems different. Blue is a bad color in general it seems. I do wonder though if there is a better setting with a lower power. I think maybe I am scorching the powder-coating on the stainless making it hard to get off???

[Mike Null]

Julie

Welcome to SMC. There is a lot of truth in what you say. Colors vary and so do manufacturers coatings. Fortunately, my Trotec rotary is accurate on repeats or I would never be able to do some of the colors. I'm inclined to think that you may be over powering (my speculation since you didn't state the wattage of your machine) and using too high a dpi setting. I use 500 dpi.

If you haven't tried Magic Erasers you must do so, then find yourself a good cleaner like Zep 505.

[Jeff Watkins]

I've engraved a lot of OT tumblers over the past year and half I've had my 45watt laser. When I first started last year I was able to run P100, S75, 500DPI, with good results. Then Christmas rolled around last year and I picked up a new batch of OT tumblers and had a lot of fine detail that was marked but not removed by the laser. I held up the new tumblers against an older one and realized the powder coating was thicker. At the same time I also noticed that the profile of the tumbler was different and the 3 inch graphic that used to fit perfectly hung over the taper in the middle. I had to resize my graphic to 2.75 to make it fit. While using a focus billet I noticed that what's focused on one tumbler may be out of focus on the next so they can vary slightly in width.

That said, I now use a small bubble level on my gantry rail and another on the tumbler to make sure they are parallel and level. I then use a focus billet to check every tumbler (only takes a second and avoids Ozarks quality control issues). Lately, I've been getting consistent results with P100, S65. 500DPI. The best thing I've found to date for clearing up the left over residue has been the $3 bottle of orange Kitchen Degreaser from Home Depot. I spray it on a tumbler let it sit for a few minutes and then use a magic eraser to lightly rub it to a bright shiny engraving.

[Jeremy Brown]

I mainly do ozark trail tumblers, I did a coupon test on ozarks and I always got that little bit of residue left over. Didn't matter how much power, speed is used but the amount of residue does change. On the coupon, my butter zone is 100% power, 65% speed and 500 PPI (30 watt). decreasing the speed or increasing PPI would reduce the amount left behind but would increase burnback (less detail). I use acetone to clean the residue off, its the strongest stuff that doesn't affect the finish of the color.

I have been burned by running cups twice, so I try not to do that. Although on some Yeti's I have too.

[Jeff Watkins]

Has anyone engraved on the newer Ozark Trail tumblers with the enamel type coating? If you have engraved any of the shiny color tumblers did you need to alter your speed/power settings from the powder coated or did the PC settings work the same? The enamel ones also say Dishwasher Safe on them and the PC do not.