Babysitting the Job?

[Darrin Davis]

Just curious how people go about babysitting their laser engraving/cutting operation. How much of an eye do you keep on your machine while doing engraving or cutting jobs? I can't see myself watching my engraver engrave a large design for 30 straight minutes. Any opinions are welcome. Thanks!

[Dave Sheldrake]

Nobody who works with me is ever more than 10 feet away from any of my machines when they are running.

277785

Not one of mine but this is what can happen if you are not watching.

cheers

Dave

[Scott Shepherd]

Better find some work to do on the computer the laser uses. If cutting acrylic, I NEVER leave it alone. I'm always in a position to see the cut, especially thicker material. If it's raster engraving, I'm a little more forgiving.

I've watched it happen before when cutting acrylic, it takes less than 10 seconds to have a VERY serious issue.

[Bert Kemp]

277788277789277790I was sitting 3 feet away and this happened in less then 1 min.I glanced over saw the yellow glow jumped up open cover and got it out all in less then a min.Now when I cut anything I hoover over it like a hawk, even if its a 15 min cut, I watch it.

[Glen Monaghan]

Engraving anodized aluminum, running thermark, and similar, I'm not so concerned and don't keep a constantly hovering watch. When cutting wood, I stay right there with the cutting in my peripheral vision while preparing or finishing other product. When cutting acrylic, I stand there and watch it, regardless of how long it will take. I've had three small but self-sustained and growing fires recently when cutting (highly detailed) acrylic on a pin table. Each fire was quickly extinguished with water from small spray bottle with no machine damage because I was right there.

Probably ought to keep at least as close an eye on the laser machine as you would on the child shown in your avatar when he/she is out and about around the house or yard... ;^)

[Vic Velcro]

I stay within 15 feet of my unit when rastering or cutting woods and plastics. I remain in the shop area but do wander a bit farther when marking anodized or etching glass. I have a camera mounted directly above the unit and it can be view from any PC in the network. A viewing window is always open in the upper right corner of my laptop screen and I ask my assistant to do the same, just in case I look away at the wrong moment. I have also installed a temperature alarm sensor inside the unit which sounds an audible alarm and flashes a cluster of high intensity LEDs if the temperature rises 5F within 60 seconds or rises 10F above ambient. I have the same type of alarm sensor installed in the coolant outflow hose just 6 inches after the coolant leaves the LASER tube. If the alarm is not attended to within 10 seconds, it cuts a relay that controls the electric line that powers the LASER unit.

Call me OCD.

[Joe Pelonio]

I am either next to it doing other things on the computer, or working 3' away on a table, removing transfer tape from cut pieces, cleaning them, or packing for shipping. Most of my work is wholesale parts manufacturing but in the case of personalizing customer items, I will stand and watch it the whole time.

[Darrin Davis]

Thanks for the replies. As a rookie, sounds like I need to stay close and keep an eye on things. Being a woodshop teacher we usually just raster engrave on wood.

One thing I did notice though vector cutting rowmark 1/16" lasermax is that there is a constant flame. I did not notice it while cutting red (i guess the red hid the color of the flame) but when cutting black lasermax I could see the flame the whole time. Even with air assist I definitely kept an eye on the cutting.

[Chuck Stone]

Like others have mentioned.. if the material itself isn't flammable I'm a little more forgiving.
But anything I could put in my wood stove? I'm staying right there.
There's too many stories from people we know having close calls or
outright fires. It is NOT urban legend, it is NOT exaggerated and it is NOT
something you'd recover from easily.

And even rastering or marking metals.. I don't have a pin table or honeycomb, I use
plastic lighting grid that I get cheap and cut to size. The material I'm working on
may not burn, but that grid could ignite. If I need to use the rest room, I put
the machine on pause.

[Ed Maloney]

I've never had a problem like you describe with Lasermax. Are you cutting with the masking on?

[Darrin Davis]

No masking. I cut it with a 25 watt GCC LaserPro with a speed of 2.5 and power 100%. I wonder if certain color flame up more than others. The one that is noticeable is black and gold. Black being the top surface.

[Michael Gonzales]

wow, speed that up to 30 or 35...did you mean 25 or really 2.5?

[Tony Lenkic]

Try masking tape (application transfer tapes sign shops use to apply cut vinyls to substrates). It will suppress flaming up to minimal.

[Joe Pelonio]

Try masking tape (application transfer tapes sign shops use to apply cut vinyls to substrates). It will suppress flaming up to minimal.
And if not, mist the transfer tape with water. I cannot imagine cutting at speed 2.5 though, that would cause flames. On my 45 watt the speed can be as high as 40 for lasermax.

[Darrin Davis]

Yes, speed of 2.5 with a 25 watt laser. 3 to 4 speed doesn't cut all the way through in 1 pass. The only thing I can think of is raising the PPI settings to see if it will allow me to cut completely through in 1 pass at a higher speed. Any thoughts? I pulled the following pic off of Rowmarks website for 25 watt lasers.
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[Ross Moshinsky]

You don't need to cut through laminated plastic all the way often. You can do a deep score and then break the parts off. We do it all the time. If necessary a quick sanding is needed, which often is the case anyway to get rid of the sticky edge.

As for babysitting, my opinion is it matters what you're doing. Cutting, you should be watching the machine. Engraving, it's less necessary, especially on certain materials like metal. Like everything in life, it's risk vs reward. In a small shop, retail setting, it's hard not to let the machine run under minimal supervision at times.

[Hilton Lister]

You should realise that speed settings are on a different scale for different brand lasers. GCC laser @ 2.5 is completely normal. I used to cut at .1 speed, 100% power for 10mm Acrylic on my 25W GCC Mercury. Yeah, like
watching grass grow, but it works in one pass.

[Darrin Davis]

Cutting faster and snapping it on the line definitely works as long as it's square shaped but with the picture below you will see it has to be cut all the way through. This is our school logo and we made earrings out of lasermax with earring parts from Michaels. They sold like hot cakes. 100 pair in 2 weeks in a town of about 8,000 people. They are 1.4" in height. Not including the hardware. They take 58 seconds to cut out a pair.
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[Mark Sipes]

Darriin what is the max ppi setting you have on your machine. My Trotec ranges up to 10,000 pulses per inch. I run between 4000 and 8000 with 30% power and 1.5 speed air on.... no flames 1 pass through 1/16 material up the power to 60% to cut through 1/8" Romark @ 1.0 speed

.

[Chuck Stone]

Hmm.. I was going to suggest LOWERING the PPI and see how it cuts.
Like .. 150-200.

Yeah.. I was cutting .220 acrylic at 100% power, 0.6% speed just before the
tube stopped firing. Now I'm back up to 100P /2S it's like I can feel the wind in
my hair now! Us low power GCC kids have it rough..

[Mark Sipes]

well i guess I am wrong is using the term PPI since vector cutting is measured in Hz

PPI
Pulses per inch (laser pulses per inch).
This setting determines the number of laser pulses per inch emitted by the laser.
This occurs depending on the position, e.g. the pulses are always emitted at the
same interval irrespective the speed.
Adjustment range: 100 - 1000 PPI
The higher the selected PPI value is, the better is the quality of the
engraving. To obtain a good result, the PPI value should be usually
larger than or at least the same as the dpi setting of the printer driver
(Process options – Resolution), e.g. a minimum value of 500 PPI
should be selected for a resolution of 500 dpi. A low PPI value is only
useful when processing some types of rubber or in cases where the
contour is only to be perforated but not cut through. Unlike the
resolution in dpi, increase in PPI does not have an effect on the
engraving time.

Hz
Frequency of laser pulses during cutting. This setting determines the number of
laser pulses per second emitted by the laser. Unlike engraving, with cutting it is not
necessary to create fine contours by means of resolution. In this case, the position
sensitive control used with the PPI can therefore be replaced by a set frequency.
Adjustment range: 1000 - 10000 Hz for CO2 systems,

[Chuck Stone]

Yeah, Mark .. terminology can be funny.. especially when some manufacturers
use or mis-use the terms as marketing tools. But I did understand what
you were referring to. I don't recall a user available setting for Hz on the GCC.
(could be there, I don't have access to most of the menu on mine) but the PPI
seems to function like you originally stated. And several people recommended
to me that I lower this value and see if the results were better. (they were..
less charring on wood) I think the settings go from 50 to 1500 on the GCC.
I typically cut 1/8 ply at 150 and acrylic at 250, but I'm still experimenting.
I do seem to get less melt at 250.

[Joe Hillmann]

I don't hover over the machine but I never leave the room or get out of sight of the machine. And even then by the time a fire is noticed it can get quite large. I have thought of mounting round security mirrors above each laser so I can inside them from any spot in the room.

[Darrin Davis]

My GCC 25 watt LaserPro has a PPI setting of 100-1000 and NO Hz setting.

Don't feel sorry for me having a less powerful machine. LoL I'm a high school teacher and we have nothing but time to do our work. If I was on the business end of things trying to pay the mortgage I would have a more powerful laser. I'm very satisfied with our new laser and amazed every day with what it does. Technology is great.

[Craig Matheny]

I don't hover over mine at all but I also only cut wood. However, I do have CCTV cameras so I can at any time see the cutting bed on all machines.

[TAMI WILSON]

Darrin
I was having the same issue. I discovered I had the large cone rather than the small one on my trotec. Changing out the cone solved my problem. The air assist was more concentrated with the smaller cone.
what machine do you have and do you have air assist?

tami

[Mike Null]

My office and working pc is less than 10 feet from my machine and if I'm cutting I keep a close eye on it. I do leave the room briefly if I'm rastering.

[Mark Ross]

We have a camera on our Epilogs that broadcast to a large TV and nobody is more than 1 second away working on other thing. That being said, we are looking at a flare up system using a FLIR and an inert nitrogen system for next year. In the 5 years I have worked with my company we have had 4 small fires.

[Darrin Davis]

I have a GCC LaserPro Mercury III 25 watt. I didn't know that different cones could be ordered. I'll have to check into that. I'm just using the one that came installed on it.


Darrin
I was having the same issue. I discovered I had the large cone rather than the small one on my trotec. Changing out the cone solved my problem. The air assist was more concentrated with the smaller cone.
what machine do you have and do you have air assist?

tami