Braille....

[Jeff Toro]

Has anyone had success in doing the braille holes for braille balls on a laser? I've seen tutorials on Universals site as well as others, but I have personally never tried it. I currently have a third party do the my braille, but I would rather keep it all in house since their turn around seems to get longer and longer each time I have some braille to be done. I've been trolling ebay and other used equipment sites searching for a rotary engraver for braille purposes only, but I have yet to find one or I should say one that isn't thousands of dollars. I don't doubt the used machines are worth the money, but I honestly only see myself using it for braille and nothing more.

Any insight would be great, thank you

[Scott Shepherd]

I've made many on the laser. I've used the method on Universal's site many, many times. I like it over the method of engraving the holes and gluing the balls in.

[Gary Hair]

I've made many on the laser. I've used the method on Universal's site many, many times. I like it over the method of engraving the holes and gluing the balls in.

If you are talking about rastering away the material and leaving the braille pattern raised, that is not compliant with ADA. If you are making those for your clients then you should put away some extra money for when you have to replace them all with proper signage.

[Mike Null]

Do a search here. Keith Outten has described his method of making them with a laser using balls purchased from somebody like McMaster-Carr.

[Joe Pelonio]

Yes, I use the laser to cut the holes, and the balls pop in nicely, though I do also glue them to be safe. Mostly I use laminate (Wilsonart/Formica) with 1/8" black acrylic backing.

[Scott Shepherd]

If you are talking about rastering away the material and leaving the braille pattern raised, that is not compliant with ADA. If you are making those for your clients then you should put away some extra money for when you have to replace them all with proper signage.

Nope, that's not what I'm talking about at all. On Universal's site, there is a method of using 1/32" ADA material,vector cutting the holes from the backside. It works VERY well. Fully ADA compliant and no glueing of balls is needed.

I also don't use that method any longer. We use a rotary engraver and drill the holes. It's light years faster.

[Keith Outten]

I use my laser to raster the braille holes but my ADA signs are all made from Dupont Corian. If I were going to use acrylic material I would most likely drill the holes on my CNC Router.

I use half inch thick Corian because one of my selling points is that I can engrave the customers detailed logo and I can machine keyholes to mount my signs on the wall. I also engrave the text and numbers 1/32" deep and inlay 1/16" thick material for the tactile text.
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[Scott Shepherd]

Keith, one of my missions in life it to get you to use the rotary engraver for drilling holes. It's SO easy and works SO well, you'll be kicking yourself for not doing it 5000 signs sooner :)

[Paul Phillips]

I second what Scott said, I realize not everyone can afford a rotary engraver but if your doing a lot of braille signs it's by far the fasted way to go IMO. We have the Accent Signage license and I use the Braille pen to manually pressure fit/insert the Braille balls into the hole, no gluing and I can do over 100 per minute, they also make an "auto raster" tool that fits on the spindle of your engraver and will do a whole table full of braille automatically, I find I can do it faster by hand though. Good to know there are other methods out there though for those who don't do enough to justify cost.
Paul

[Keith Outten]

Scott,

I've considered purchasing a small rotary engraver a couple times but then I figured that since I have to put my Corian signs in the laser to engrave the logo I would end up having to use two machines for the same sign, three if you include machining the sign blanks on the router. You could be right though, it still might be a time saver.

I'll have to visit your shop for a demonstration, let me know when you have the time.
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[Paul Phillips]

Keith, we keep a piece of acrylic sheet on our engraver table and we have a pen attachment that we use for marking the location for sign placement, that way we can wipe ink off with DNA between jobs, I also use low tack double sided tape to hold pieces for drilling, the larger the engraver table the more time this saves. Once you see a raster pen work though, you'll wonder how you ever lived without one! I know some CNC machines have an engraving attachment that you can get, we don't have one but for large volume work I think that would be faster even.
Paul

[Scott Shepherd]

I'll have to visit your shop for a demonstration, let me know when you have the time.


Just let me know when you have time and we'll make it happen! Glad to show you how it works. If we can convince you that you'll never have to glue another ball in, my work will be done :) I haven't glued a braille ball in place in a couple years now and I don't miss it.