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stan kern
07-11-2011, 3:22 PM
Used a reflective vinyl for the letters and painters tape to hold it together,tricky to apply but does work
Also placed the vinyl on a metal sheet to cut

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpAViAo8aP8 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpAViAo8aP8)

Mike Null
07-11-2011, 3:39 PM
It appeared as though you cut through the vinyl backer. It would have been easier to kiss cut the vinyl then use transfer paper. The bottom line though--your result is what you were looking for.

Richard Rumancik
07-11-2011, 9:18 PM
End result looks fine; as Mike noted it will be a lot easier to reduce your power so that you just cut through the vinyl and penetrate a little into the paper. If you are not familiar with kiss-cutting using a vinyl cutter, find a YouTube video for vinyl cutting and you'll get the idea what you need to mimic with the laser.

You need to find a setting that is guaranteed to get through the vinyl, but keeps the paper intact as much as possible. If it cuts through in a few place it is no big problem. (In the worst case just apply some packing tape to the back of the liner if it is cut through too much.) Then weed and use transfer tape so you can apply at least one full word at a time. As noted in a recent thread, using the laser for vinyl cutting is kind of an "off-label" application but for small jobs it can be made to work.

If you are an amateur with vinyl (like me) you might even consider applying the vinyl wet. It gives you a bit of a fighting chance to reposition. Otherwise the vinyl will get sucked into the metal in the wrong place - has something to do with quantum mechanics and black hole theory. Of course the experts wouldn't think of applying wet . . .

Mike Null
07-11-2011, 10:50 PM
Applying wet isn't a bad idea. Put a drop or two of dishwasher spot remover (JetDry) in your spray bottle. It's a surfactant and will allow the water to "sheet" over the surface.

A squeegee and an Exacto are also helpful in laying the vinyl. The Exacto can burst air bubbles. There are a lot of videos on Youtube.

Edi Royer
07-12-2011, 1:40 AM
Looks great!

Is this type of vinyl safe to cut with lasers? I was told PVC and Vinyl were too no-nos with the laser?
I have a ton of this stuff and would love to use it if it's safe!

Contact paper works great for applying individual letters as well. Place the letters on the contact paper, peel off the backing on the letters and adhere to your surface pulling the contact paper away slowly.

Dan Hintz
07-12-2011, 6:33 AM
Is this type of vinyl safe to cut with lasers? I was told PVC and Vinyl were too no-nos with the laser? I have a ton of this stuff and would love to use it if it's safe!
The danger with PVC is creating hydrochloric acid when the offgasses combine with moisture in the air... HCl does nasty things to metal (rust), human tissue (dissolves), etc.

That said, the amount of offgassing from kiss-cutting a thin piece of vinyl is relatively miniscule, and therefore many will do small jobs with it from time to time. The real danger comes from cutting thick sheets of the stuff, and the offgassing is significant... you can always tell machines that have had PVC processed in them as the rust covers every nook and cranny.

Scott Shepherd
07-12-2011, 8:37 AM
As a general rule, reflective is one of the products that's not recommended to apply wet. It can cause premature failure of the product.

Richard Rumancik
07-12-2011, 10:18 AM
Steve is correct; I did not pick up on the fact that it was reflective tape and did not know the restrictions against applying wet. I did a bit of hunting and saw lots of indications against applying wet, although there were few places that supplied an actual reason for it. But I gather that the reflective material will hold moisture longer causing degradation of the adhesive and/or delamination of the vinyl. But I did come across the Rapid Tac site - they suggest that Rapid Tac II will work with reflectives as it dries faster. But I have not used application fluid - just soap and water. But maybe Rapid Tac II is a solution.

Larry Bratton
07-12-2011, 11:03 AM
Looks great!

Is this type of vinyl safe to cut with lasers? I was told PVC and Vinyl were too no-nos with the laser?
I have a ton of this stuff and would love to use it if it's safe!

Contact paper works great for applying individual letters as well. Place the letters on the contact paper, peel off the backing on the letters and adhere to your surface pulling the contact paper away slowly.

Edi,
All of the reflective that I have ever cut was polyester based. I have used a lot of this particular product, here are the specs on it and you can find more info on their site, but you will have to buy it from a distributor. http://www.tapetechnologies.com/reflect_specs.html There are other manufacturers also including 3m.
Oh, and be forewarned, the adhesive is very aggressive.

stan kern
07-13-2011, 12:08 AM
thanks for the ideas of kiss cutting and applying,i also was concerned about the vinyl cutting (producing who knows what for damage)but its thin stuff and i do very little
vinyl work

Edi Royer
07-13-2011, 1:02 AM
That makes sense....thanks :)

Edi Royer
07-13-2011, 1:04 AM
Thanks for the link. I'll have to check and see if the stuff I have is polyester based.

Larry Bratton
07-13-2011, 12:26 PM
I would not be (and am not) concerned about cutting sign vinyl occasionally. I would not raster it though. If I cut it, I cut it at high speed and low power..like 90s and 8p to kiss cut. Have good exhaust system too. I don't think it contains enough PVC to worry about or at least some brands anyway. I use Oracal and have tested it with the hot copper wire test and got no green flame at all.

Beth Page
07-13-2011, 1:39 PM
I have a Pro Mercury Series II 30 watt laser and have been cutting vinyl for decals, and i use 100% pwr and 20% spd and it doesn't cut through the paper backing, not sure if this of any help just thought i'd throw my two cents in.

Larry Bratton
07-13-2011, 2:41 PM
I have a Pro Mercury Series II 30 watt laser and have been cutting vinyl for decals, and i use 100% pwr and 20% spd and it doesn't cut through the paper backing, not sure if this of any help just thought i'd throw my two cents in.
Wow..that seems like a huge overkill. I can cut 1/8" acrylic at about that same setting. ?? You say your NOT cutting through the backing? Something is amiss here.

Dan Hintz
07-13-2011, 2:56 PM
Larry, I can only assume she swapped the power/speed...

Larry Bratton
07-13-2011, 5:29 PM
Larry, I can only assume she swapped the power/speed...

Surely she did...but even so, that would be wayyy too much power, at least for my 40 watt it would be. I use a max of 8p.

Albert Nix
07-14-2011, 9:17 AM
My GCC 40w will not cut 1/8 acrylic at 20% SP at any power setting. I am usaully at 100%P and 2-2.5% SP ...Been that way since new?

Dan Hintz
07-14-2011, 9:25 AM
Albert, we're talking about (maybe) 1/64" thick vinyl... if you can't cut through that at 20S, you have major issues ;)

Larry Bratton
07-14-2011, 11:23 AM
Albert
As Dan said, something is wrong there. You should be cutting 1/8" acrylic no slower than 10-12s at 100p. My Epilog manual recommends 15s-100p-5000f. I cut 1/4" at about 6s. I use 2500-5000 frequency. Yours could be an alignment problem if it's always been that way. Have you ever checked the alignment?

Richard Rumancik
07-14-2011, 11:51 AM
My GCC 40w will not cut 1/8 acrylic at 20% SP at any power setting. I am usaully at 100%P and 2-2.5% SP ...Been that way since new?

Dan, I think Albert was responding to Larry. . . who said "I can cut 1/8" acrylic at [100% power and 20% speed.]

So Albert is wondering why his 40 watt GCC can't cut acrylic at 20% speed like Larry . . . this is getting off topic, but here's my take.

The reason is: GCC and Epilog use different methods for measuring speed. The percentage method of representing power is more-or-less transferrable between machines - providing other parameters are identical (lens FL, ppi, for example.) But percent speed is not transferrable between machines.

There are two main reasons for this.

1. The maximum speed of laser engravers from different manufacturers for a given wattage is not constant. Also, newer machines can attain faster maximum raster speeds. The maximum speed is usually specified for RASTER engraving only, and many manufacturers do not even specify a maximum speed for vector cutting. The vector-cutting maximum speed might be around 1/3 (or less) of the maximum raster speed.

2. GCC and Epilog use different methods for specifying speed for vectoring. GCC defines the vector speed setting as a % of maximum raster speed. This is not a very meaningful ratio but I don't think they invented it (but copied ULS, more or less).

Epilog defines the vector speed setting as a % of maximum vector speed. (This makes sense, but makes them different than ULS and GCC).

So Epilogs may "appear" to vector-cut 10 times faster, but that is not the case. Albert, I expect that your GCC is operating normally.

Larry Bratton
07-14-2011, 12:51 PM
Thanks for explaining that Richard. Not owning a GCC it is easy to assume and you know what you do when you ass u me. Hopefully he is in good shape, it just sounds strange.