Laser Engraving Ring cutout

[Robert Dziuba]

Hi,
I am trying to laser engrave a cutout into a trophy base to glue a bowl into I need to laser a ring 2.1" thick with 4.9" diameter in center of line. I ran the job as a raster job in my 75 watt Legend 32 EX CO2 (My most powerful machine). It looked like it will work, but it too 15 minutes to do it. Is there any other way for me to engrave this that won't take as long. Ie. Can I run it as a few vector cutting jobs to achieve the same depressed ring. I also thought of chopping the circle in half and running one half at a time. If anyone has any ideas, please let me know.

Thank you,

[Kev Williams]

Lasers are great but they can only machine .003" of an inch at a time. Raster sweeping a 5" circle at that rate takes time...

Fast requires this method I'm afraid...
machining.jpg

[Robert Bonenfant]

A cnc router would be the way to go as kev has suggested. Making a 5" circle with a depth of 2" would take about a 1 minute with a cnc router using a 1/2" Bit (Did a Quick run in Vcarve with my machines settings)
Depending on the size of the trophy and if its flat, you might also want to look at a router table - Cheaper option :-)

[Rich Harman]

A drill press and large forstner bit would be quick. Or use a large hole saw and chisel out the center. You could also construct a jig and use a regular router.

[Robert Dziuba]

Hi,
I am trying to laser engrave a cutout into a trophy base to glue a bowl into I need to laser a ring 2.1" thick with 4.9" diameter in center of line. I ran the job as a raster job in my 75 watt Legend 32 EX CO2 (My most powerful machine). It looked like it will work, but it too 15 minutes to do it. Is there any other way for me to engrave this that won't take as long. Ie. Can I run it as a few vector cutting jobs to achieve the same depressed ring. I also thought of chopping the circle in half and running one half at a time. If anyone has any ideas, please let me know.

Thank you,

Thank you for the advise, I am looking into quotes for machining, and I found a company that supplies an insert that I can put under the bowl and attach it to the trophy base with a nut. That's probably the best option. Like a trophy without drilling a hole into the bowl to put the cap nut and threaded rod into it.

[Mark Sipes]

Confused..... Needed to cut a ring 2.5" deep into a base holder, but the bowl hold down will work with a 1/4" rod/nut.

Should have told us is was a standard silver bowl.. I was invisioning a Crystal Vase, Bowl. Still did not understand WHY you needed to go 2.5"deep into the wood......


.

[Steven Yates]

You could try vectoring several concentric circles instead of rastering. You'd figure the size difference of the circles similar to your raster resolution so it leaves no unlasered areas between them.

It would save the time spent moving the lens across the unlasered hole in the middle of the ring, but the speed while tracing each circle is likely to be slow enough compared the speed when rastering across one axis that this won't help.

[Adam Herman]

maybe a flat circle with an outside dia. of 4.9 inches and an inside dia. of 4.9 - 2x 2.1 ?

[Kev Williams]

I'm thinking the OP doesn't/didn't need to cut a 4.9" diameter ring 2.1" deep, I believe he simply meant the base he's using is 2.1" thick... He never would've been able to engrave it 15 minutes otherwise