Help with Acrylic Plaque

[George McGinnis]

Can someone tell me the correct way to laser Arcylic. I have a 30 watt machineand used 80% power and 100% speed without the masking paper. It doesn't look to bad but you can see around the text that it discolored the material and the text is not a very bright white color. Are my setting even close or should have I engraved through the masking paper.
Thanks again for the help.
George

[Scott Shepherd]

You mean rastering? If so, I'd say your power is way too high. Doesn't take much power at all to mark acrylic. Probably more in the 20-30% on power. Just guessing.

[Jason Baker1522]

I am fairly new to this but I have done a lot of acrylic with my 30 watt machine and I use 100 power and 50 speed and I have not lasered threw a sheet yet just right on the acrylic and had great results.
Jason

[Joe Pelonio]

Your machine will vary. Take a scrap and experiment, in fact what I used to do is engrave the settings on it for future reference. My 45 watt does best at 95% speed, 60% power at 400 DPI on clear.

[Dave Johnson29]

Can someone tell me the correct way to laser Arcylic.

Hi George,

Power and speed may be OK, but I would try less power first.

What sort of acrylic is it? Extruded or cast? It makes a big difference. Extruded does not engrave well.

[Joseph B. Chritz]

First - are you sure it is acrylic.
Second - cast acrylic will give a nice frosty white appearance
extruded acrylic not so good

[Milazim Zeka]

Cast Acrylic has been the best so far. I personally engrave on Cast Acrylic with 95% Speed and 43% Power (I have a 40 Watt machine) with maximum 500 DPI depending on what i engrave and the outcome has been perfect so far.

The best way of doing it is to experiment on scrap pieces.

[David Fairfield]

Yeah good idea to make a standardized test file which you can use to quickly gauge your settings. Materials differ and coming up with a new test for every material is a PiTA. Then save your test samples in an orgainzed file. It pays to be scientific about it.

[Mike Null]

After you determine your sttings engrave the piece from the back. It just looks better that way and every pro shop I know of follows that practice.

[George McGinnis]

I bought the acrylic from JDS as part of a floating acrylic plaque set. I was engraving on the backside using 600dpi with the masking paper taken off. Maybe I should have decreased the dpi.
Thanks George

[Scott Shepherd]

Decrease the DPI and the power.