Plastazote settings

[Jiten Patel]

Hi All,

Trying to engrave and cut Plastazote to make some foam inserts. It's meant to cut real clean and engrave really nicely, but all I get it a goop. It stuggles to punch through when engraving and bubbles. A little more power and it blasts through and makes a molten pile of mess. Where am I going wrong here...anyone used this stuff and if so, do you have a rough setting to start me off please?

Jit

[Mike Null]

Jit

I've never used it but my fall back strategy would be to lower the frequency and increase the air pressure.

[Frédéric PARROT]

Hi Jit,
I never do that, but I read this in a Google Group : "I've cut a lot of it and it seems to work well with little shrinkage at low power and multiple cuts at high speed.".
Perhaps it can help ?

[matthew knott]

We engrave loads of this stuff but always use a yag or fibre, i love it because it engraves so easily, speeds of 2000mm Second and it still goes in deep, we don't cut it as this is done by waterjet . I guess high speed and very low power, then just keep creeping the speed up and see what happens, also (and im no expert with plotter co2's) but for engraving would it be better to has gas assist off? that might be bad for the lens, i honestly dont know but blowing high pressure air onto melted foam might distort the engraving ,

[Michael Hunter]

I cut 30mm thick foam* for packaging at full power, about half speed and high frequency.
I focus about 1/3 the depth into the foam.
Good clean cuts with crisp edges.

I did try 50mm foam but found it did not cut well with 60W

Very important to get through in one pass and have good air-assist! (Otherwise melty mess on the edges).

Engraving quality is good enough for a simple logo on the packaging, but nothing to be proud of.


*The supplier says the foam is Plastazote LD29, but it looks, feels and smells like polyurethane whereas I believe Plastazote is polyethylene.
(The supplier had been shaping the foam too, so are not so helpful now that part of the job has been taken away from them!).

[matthew knott]

I will try a bit of the stuff we engrave on the co2 tomorrow, it might be a different foam, if it is and it cut engraves i will find out what it is, also i find colour makes a massive difference, black foam excellent, yellow ok, blue and red hopeless.

[Jiten Patel]

I found that no matter what I did, I couldn't get a good cut or engraving. So for engraving, I tried really fast, low power, but it didn't go through the top layer....just bubbled it up. I increased the power until it did go through, but then ended up with a goopy mess as attached.

Cutting, it's only 25mm of foam, but 80w will not go through it in one pass??? I will try focusing a few mm into the material and see if that works. Thanks for the suggestions, I will play around and see what I can get.

What I get:
267187


What it should look like!!!
267188

[matthew knott]

The foam we have engraves fine, better than your photo, cuts, but likes catching fire, and i think is a higher density than yours. SO i guess its different stuff!