Anybody care to share powder coating settings?

[Tracey Bakewell]

I have a large job to do that is powder coated. I don't have very many units to ruin to test on so I was hoping someone could share a starting point with me if you're doing powder coated materials?

I have a ULS 50 watt machine.

Thanks!!!
Tracey

[Mark Sipes]

Cylindrical or flat...... If flat why would you ruin any ? start as if it were a normal painted surface and run the job twice if required.. Subsequent jobs up the power or slow the speed. Cylindrical is the tough one. I have little luck rerunning a job and hitting it in the same place twice.

[Gary Hair]

Tracey,
It's really going to depend on the thickness of the coating and, trust me, they vary greatly depending on the person doing the coating, the color, the phase of the moon, etc. Like most things with the laser, start with medium speed and full power, reduce speed until you get the results you want. It should only take one test piece to dial in the settings. The detail of the artwork will determine the dpi - small text, fine lines, lots of detail, etc., will require higher dpi - maybe 500 or 600. Large text or simple graphics may work fine with 250 or 300. I'd start at 300 and increase it if necessary - bear in mind that when you increase the dpi you can either increase speed or reduce power, whichever is possible. On my machine, a 30 watt, 80ips GCC, I would start at 300 dpi, 100% power and 40% speed. Since you have 50 watts it should be higher speed than mine, but that's a good place to start. Do the same thing as I do for Cermark, a bunch of 1/8" or 1/4" squares, each one representing 100% power and various speeds. Once you get that dialed in then you can test your graphic or text and determine the dpi.

Gary

[Mike Null]

I run it at 100 power and 70 inches per second at 500 dpi. Do it twice as the thickness can vary and you may not clean up all the paint.

My machine is 45 watts.

[Tracey Bakewell]

Awesome everybody thank you!!! It is definitely flat and very easy graphic, no fine details YAY! Ok, so later tonight I will test and post my results, it feels like a very thin powder coat though as I've felt other powder coated objects you could just tell were very thick.

[Mike Null]

Powder coating applied robotically is typically much thinner than that sprayed on by hand.

[Tracey Bakewell]

So, settings are working good at 100% speed, 30% power 1000dpi and 500ppi... however, it's taking too long! Last time I dropped the dpi down and it did not remove all the powder coating, but I didn't have the power higher, so I'm going to try a minor tweek on this next round to see if I can reduce the dpi or ppi one more time as the art is pretty simple I just wish I could yell at it and make it go faster!

[Tim Bateson]

Powder coating can be very hard to laser though. Unlike anodized, all you will be doing is blasting away the coating down to the bare metal. Colors like Red are near impossible to totally laser away. At least with a 35watt laser.

[Tracey Bakewell]

Thanks Tim! I have good settings as it is now engraving nicely, just trying to optimize at this point to make it go faster so tweeking with power and dpi and ppi at the moment, the entire job was taking 2 hours, it's down to 1 hr 20 min, trying for 1 hour total, that's my goal anyways. I have a 50 watt laser.

[Tracey Bakewell]

K, still dialing in... at 100% speed, 35% power, 800 ppi and 1000 ppi took 1 hr. 15 min... just downed the ppi a bit and power up a bit, trying again... still looking for that 1 hour mark! Trying the ppi at 700 power at 38

[Tracey Bakewell]

YAY! Down to 42 minutes!!! Just dropped the ppi again, now trying 700 ppi 500 dpi power 38% speed 100% and all I wanted was to get to 1 hr, what a huge jump!

[Tim Bateson]

Not to hijack this thread but can someone explain what the PPI is on a ULS? On an Epilog - Rastering has DPI/Power/Speed ; Vectoring - DPI/Power/Speed/Freq

[Mike Null]

Tim

The ppi is pulses per inch and as far as I know is a setting on ULS, Trotec and perhaps other machines. (can't speak for the Chinese machines) As the name indicates it regulates the number of times the laser pulses.