laserable minimum font height question

[Ken Shea]

Presuming most Chinese lasers operate about the same...............
I have job available that requires marking black anodized aluminum face plates.
Some of the numbers are only .038 inch in height.
The question, are these lasers capable of that size and still maintain clarity.

The font is not artistic at all.

Thanks
Ken

[Joe Pelonio]

I have done letters that small on Rowmark engraving stock. They came out great but I had to use a magnifying glass to read it.

[Ken Shea]

Thanks Joe,
That is encouraging, I was a little suspect it would be possible.

[Richard Rumancik]

Whether it is readable will depend somewhat on the optics used and the resolution set on the driver. If you use a 2" lens you will likely have a .005" spot size so I think it may be marginal. If you can get a 1.5" FL lens it would be a big improvement as your spot size would be closer to .003". Focus will be important as well (regardless of which lens you use) but becomes more important with short FL lenses as you have reduced depth of field. It also requires good mechanics (no backlash); you might have to experiment with "tuning", if your laser has that adjustment option. What that does is allow you to tweak the location of the reverse-pass so it lines up with the forward (left-to-right) pass. If the lines are staggered you will get jaggies on the edges of the characters, which will be especially bad on a small font.

[Mike Null]

That issue can sometimes be solved by simply lowering your speed and power settings. I remember an old Epilog where I had to run at half speed or so to get good marks.

[Rodne Gold]

The rule of thumb is that the smallest letter that can be engraved is 5-7x the line width.
The problem is that most packages dont have vector based single line TTF fonts , albeit there are some free ones available on the internet (Google for stick font or free single line TTF font)
I would do the bigger characters normally and use one of those vector fonts for the small 1mm high letters as these wont raster engrave well at all, especially if they have serifs.
You can also use a TTF "thin" font and just engrave the outline and not raster the fill

[Michael Hunter]

That size of lettering is pushing the limits for typical Chinese systems.

The local importer here claims text down to 1.5mm high - about 0.06". During a demo we did manage to get smaller than that, but the quality was not brilliant.

[Ken Shea]

OK, it looks like somewhat of a consensus, it might be able to if :)
They are single line font, no fill which is a plus. Guess the only way to know with certainty is to try, if it works great and if not well, that's just the way it is. I have essentially no experience so this help is at least a working start.

Thanks for the input

[Albert Nix]

I engraved "John 3:16" on a leather boot lace once. Had to us the 1.5" lens and a jig to hold it flat and like Joe said, You had to use a magnifing glass to read it.

[Ken Shea]

What is the 1.5" and 2" lens referring to and how do you tell which one it comes with?