Results from my Triumph

[Kev Williams]

Been able to spend a little time with my new toy during the holidays, thanks to many of my customers taking the week off!

Very interesting machines these Chinese lasers, about night & day from my 25w NH Optima (ULS) and my 40w NH LS900. Lots of settings and parameters to figure out as you go.

This being a large machine (1300x900mm) it's designed more for cutting than laser engraving, and it's max speed is 500mm/second. My ULS is a little faster, but my LS900 flies in comparison.

But that's just rastering. In doing some test cuts on 1/16" engraving stock, some weird shaped badges that takes my 900 about 6-7 seconds to cut, the Triumph does in 2-3 seconds. 12" circles cut about 3-4x faster.

I bought this with an 80w laser- which I find out is actually a 90w according to Reci, which tested at 110w. I'm assuming 80 is about where it ends up at the 27mw recommended max...

Anyway, I bought this thing because (A) it was cheap, and (B) I can laser etch 2 of the larger 500x800mm anodized control panels I build at one time, whereas my LS900 requires two setups for each panel. And I love how it does anodized aluminum! This thing doesn't just 'bleach' the die out of the anodizing, it vaporizes it and actually etches the bare aluminum. It will do this at full speed and 90% power. My other lasers will only vaporize "cheap" anodizing, and only enough to make it look terrible. The Triumph turns it nearly white, just like a fiber or yag would do! Check the pics, very consistent and bright, and in the closeup you can see the etching into the metal. (these letters are about 2" tall)

http://www.engraver1.com/erase1/anod1.jpg

http://www.engraver1.com/erase1/anod2.jpg




Another reason I bought it was hopefully to do Cermark/SS etching faster. Well, sadly, I've given up that idea altogether. I've had great success with Cermark for many years with my other lasers, but this thing just manhandles Cermark. If I run the laser at anything over 28% power and full speed, the laser pretty much vaporizes the Cermark, leaving a tinny-brown mark. At around 22% I get a nice black mark, however, the laser seems to fire hotter across longer expanses (like the tops of T's and E's") than it does shorter expanses (like the bottoms and sides of T's and E's)-- so what I get are letters with brown long spots and black short spots. If I adjust the power down, then I get black long spots and Cermark that washes off the short spots. Spent a whole day trying to find the sweet spot before finally deciding there isn't a sweet spot.

But what I did find is, like with aluminum, this laser will actually etch stainless. However, I kind of have the same problem as with Cermark, the etching isn't consistent. But I haven't spent a lot of time with experimenting yet. Check the pics, first pic shows how the burn color changed from top to bottom, like it was overheating the metal at first, then leveled off. (In other samples, it was reversed, with the bottom looking overheated) Note the "corridor", this is a Cermark etch that was already on my test piece my 900 did, much blacker color. In the closeup, check the etching-- My other lasers won't physically touch metals whatsoever, but this thing sure does! (these letters are about 3/8" tall)

http://www.engraver1.com/erase1/SS1.jpg

http://www.engraver1.com/erase1/SS2.jpg





And then there's wood... Man, does this thing work fast in wood! Check this sample, the wood is maple, text is 5/8" tall and about 10" long. The depth isn't apparent in the pics, but my mic's average it out at .075" deep. It did this in 3 minutes 28 seconds. It would take my 900 over 15 minutes to engrave this that deep!

http://www.engraver1.com/erase1/wood1.jpg

http://www.engraver1.com/erase1/wood2.jpg




While it does have it's limitations and it won't do everything I may like it to do, it'll definitely be making me some money, and leaving the other lasers open for other work at the same time! For what I paid for it, you'll never hear me complain!


<edit> - And to Triumph's credit, when I went to adjust the mirrors, after preparing for a day of adjusting I found every mirror was perfect right out of the crate. The only thing I've had to do was level the table.

[gary l roberts]

It's always good to get a review, good or bad. That's what make the forum such a helpful place. Nice work and happy burning.

[Scott Shepherd]

Kev, I think you might want to take another whack at the Cermark. There's no reason it won't work. I can't believe it's blasting through the cermark. I've run cermark at 5% speed on a 75W machine and it didn't blast though it. You've got something else going on. Do the Cermark test grid and you'll find the sweet spot, but there's no reason your cermark marks should look like they do in that photo.

Do the grid and you'll find the right spot and it'll be black just like the other machine.

[Kev Williams]

Hey Scott-- there IS no cermark in the above photos (except "corridor"), that 'blood of dracula' text was done on bare stainless-- These pics below show what I'm getting WITH Cermark-- racing stripes...

The mark across the short areas is nice & black, but the long expanses, not so much. This text is fairly large as you can tell from my thumb, I can probably get great results with much smaller text, but still...

If memory serves this plate (ran with a batch of others) was done at 24% power and 500mm/s (full speed)...If I lower the power enough to get a nice black across the long areas, the Cermark doesn't stick well to the short areas, which is just as bad. What I haven't played with too much yet is slower speeds, but only because, as I understand it, these DC lasers don't work so well at low power settings. The lowest setting I've ever used at all so far is 12% to test run some Rowmark Lasermax, which it did quite well with...

There's an enigma with these Cermark settings I don't quite understand-- On my LS900, I engrave black anodized alum. at 100% power and 80% speed at 500 dpi/ppi, and get a nice white mark. To do Cermark on this machine I run 100% power and 15 to 18 speed at 500 or more dpi settings. Yet with the Triumph, while 30% power and full speed seems to blast away Cermark, the same speed and settings will barely turn anodized aluminum a light gray--?? Some wavelength issues maybe? I did run a 'reverse' Cermark test using 50% power and 200mm/s speed. The result was like I never put Cermark on in the first place, left a tan mark that looked more like metal discoloration. I can't find that piece, so I'm going to do another test shortly--

In the laser software is a slew of settings-- space speed, space acc, initial speed, min acc, cut acc, sweep acc, speed ratio, cut acc acc, space acc acc-- and that's just on ONE menu... I assume most of these have to do with vector cutting more than rastering?



http://www.engraver1.com/erase1/cermark1.jpg

http://www.engraver1.com/erase1/cermark2.jpg

[Dave Sheldrake]

Careful with bare metals Kev, backscatter can destroy the optical train and tube.

cheers

Dave

[Kev Williams]

Thanks, Scott, for telling me to not give up...!

Well speaking of enigma's-- Funny thing with my old lasers, speed and power settings are pretty much proportional- as in, 30 power and 30 speed renders pretty much the same results as 100 power and 100 speed. That doesn't seem to be even close to the case with the Triumph! I ran the piece below. Main change was I ran it at 250mm/s, half as fast. So I figured half the power would do the same... NOPE!

I kept the speed the same but changed the power settings on the fly. You can easily tell where I made the changes in the closeup--

First, I ran it at 30 power, expecting it to burn away the cermark, ran about 15 stokes-
lowered the power to 25 for another 15 or so strokes...
From here on I counted 50 strokes per setting, which went: 20, 17, 14, 10-- from 14 to 10 the burn flash went from bright white to a hardly-any-at-all faint orange. From there I went 11, 12, 13, and for fun, 50% power for the final lap.

power settings 10 and 11 left nothing. No surprise, but the higher powers DID surprise me, as they follow no rhyme or reason in relation to SPEED! Expecting to get brown results from the higher settings I got GREAT results! I can only assume the laser's power supply is compensating for speed vs power in a totally different way than my other machines!

Thanks again Scott! More to figure out, but I suppose that's half the fun! :)



http://www.engraver1.com/erase1/cermark3.jpg

http://www.engraver1.com/erase1/cermark4.jpg

[Dan Hintz]

Why would you choose to completely blow away the oxide layer on anodized aluminum rather than just open the pores and bleach the dye?

[David Somers]

Dan,

I understand the idea behind anodizing aluminum, basically a controlled electrochemical oxidation of the Aluminum surface with a dye added if desired. And I thought I understood that laser engraving anodized materials was a bleaching of the dye, leaving the actual oxidation in place. And I understand that it is best to simply "bleach" the dye with the laser rather than also removing the anodized surface or else you subject the now bare aluminum to uncontrolled oxidation which would deteriorate that surface over time, much like the schnoodly look of an unprotected aluminum door or window as it ages.

But I am not sure about your term "open the pores?" What does that mean?

And I was also curious how you tell that your engraver's settings are simply "bleaching the dye" and not burning through to bare aluminum?

Hope you are getting to play with the Trotec today instead of playing with the entertainment center!!! And if you are playing with the Trotec feel free to absolutely and totally ignore my questions in favor of recreational Trotecing!!!! <grin>

Dave

[Dave Sheldrake]

Hi Dave,

Anodise looks basically like a honeycomb, when it is dyed the small pores (hexagonal pockets) are filled with a dye that is then enclosed by collapsing the top of the pocket. The top surface of the now enclosed pocket is transparent allowing you to see the colours.

Easiest way to tell is a continuity test, aluminium hydroxide doesn't conduct, the pin of a continuity meter will tell you if you have burned away the anodise :) if you burn away the anodise itself, you risk creep back as oxides get under the anodised surface.

I used to anodise all my own stuff but gave up in the end as the controls on acid storage was getting silly (you an also anodise titanium using Cola and change colours using the amps)

cheers

Dave

[Dan Hintz]

I am not sure about your term "open the pores?" What does that mean?

Anodise looks basically like a honeycomb, when it is dyed the small pores (hexagonal pockets) are filled with a dye that is then enclosed by collapsing the top of the pocket. The top surface of the now enclosed pocket is transparent allowing you to see the colours.

Easiest way to tell is a continuity test, aluminium hydroxide doesn't conduct, the pin of a continuity meter will tell you if you have burned away the anodise :) if you burn away the anodise itself, you risk creep back as oxides get under the anodised surface.
What Dave said ^^^ :)


I was also curious how you tell that your engraver's settings are simply "bleaching the dye" and not burning through to bare aluminum?
Anodizing is pretty tough stuff overall, so you have to go out of your way to beat it up. At a typical western machine's 75ips, something in the area of 15W should give you a nice clean bleaching. Somewhere around the 25-30W mark you'll start to dig away the grown oxide layer and get down to bare aluminum again... you can tell because the pretty white you should have from a quality anodizing disappears and is replaced by the cold gray of the aluminum underneath. That's a relatively wide margin to play with, so you don't have to be scared of it. Find the minimum that works on a few test pieces, then bump the power up a few percent on all subsequent pieces to be sure.

[David Somers]

Thanks Dave!

That is pretty interesting. I didn't realize about pockets being formed during the oxidation process. Will have to pull out a microscope and see if I can see it. (Or is it far smaller than I could resolve with a decent compound scope?) Pretty fascinating. What Dan said makes sense now.

I can imagine creep back could be pretty fast under the right conditions. Exposed aluminum in my old home in HI deteriorated amazingly fast. (I lived just a mile from the vent of Kilauea, the active volcano. Lots of sulphur dioxide in the air, 9ppm at times, and that stuff turns to sulphuric acid when combined with water. Tough environment.

I was wondering about folks anodizing at home on a small scale. I have done copper plating for giggles. That is a common process among jewelers and anodizing titanium is also common among jewelers. Interesting stuff.

So....the next pesky question that comes to mind is how often do you need to recalibrate your settings when you are engraving anodized aluminum? I know the CO2 lasers change output over time, and certainly other things can cause variations as well. How often do you need to check and see if you are burning through to the bare aluminum? Or is there enough oxide there that you are fairly safe once you have an initial setting that is working for you?

Thanks again!!! Fun stuff!

Dave

[Scott Shepherd]

So....the next pesky question that comes to mind is how often do you need to recalibrate your settings when you are engraving anodized aluminum? I know the CO2 lasers change output over time, and certainly other things can cause variations as well. How often do you need to check and see if you are burning through to the bare aluminum? Or is there enough oxide there that you are fairly safe once you have an initial setting that is working for you?

Ummmm...never. Unless your tube is dying. I still use the same settings today as I did when my laser first showed up.

The only issues I've found is that not all anodizing is the same thickness. Factory anodized stock is very uniform and nice. You can buy sheet stock anodized and it does wonderfully. But when you get into machined parts that some machine shop took to some plating company, the results can be quite different. We just finished 4000-5000 anodized pieces a couple weeks ago. The customer sand blasted them prior to anodizing, so they had a different feel to them and they took different settings to get the right mark.

[David Somers]

Scott, after asking that question it dawned on me that variations would tend to reduce power output/effectiveness anyway through an aging tube, mirrors and lenses getting dirty or simply aging, etc. Any drift should simply result in the engraver taking off less of the oxide rather than more?

I can see a fairly large variation between a factory anodizing and a plating company doing smaller runs. Lots of variables involved ranging from the power and condition of the rectifiers they use, the anodes and their condition, the acid solution, contaminants, post plating process variations, etc.

Interesting stuff!! Certainly makes a huge difference on the durability and appearance of aluminum!

Thanks for your experiences Scott!!

Dave

[Dan Hintz]

Scott, after asking that question it dawned on me that variations would tend to reduce power output/effectiveness anyway through an aging tube, mirrors and lenses getting dirty or simply aging, etc. Any drift should simply result in the engraver taking off less of the oxide rather than more?

Hence my suggestion to ad a few more percent to the power level once you've found the minimum... takes care of any minor variances in tube power as it warms up for the day, changes over the months/years, etc.

It should be noted that you're not removing oxide until you get relatively high in power... minor variations in power near the low end of the scale will simply bleach less/more strongly.

[Dave Sheldrake]

I was wondering about folks anodizing at home on a small scale

Costs about $100 to set up a small anodising unit of around 10 gallons :)

I'll scribble it into an email and send it over :)

cheers

Dave

[David Somers]

As always! Thanks Dave! And Dan! And Scott!!

:)

[Scott Shepherd]

The problem I saw wasn't from power, it was more of the fine tuning. It was very small text, 4 pt, I think, and all lower case. I was seeing the ascenders getting weak. Something that was really sharp on my factory anodized sheet. Pumping up the power pushed it too far on the text to get it right on the ascenders. I spent a fair amount of time tuning the laser to get it better. The good part of that is that now it's dialed in as good as I can get it.

[Kev Williams]

Whenever a yag or fiber laser hits anodized aluminum, the bright white mark you get is because they hit bare metal. The bright results I'm getting is WHY I would rather blast thru the anodizing. I had a 400 part job I did recently end up a waste of my time because the [final] customer didn't think my etching was white enough, and wouldn't pay for it. I was 3rd-party engraving and my customer's customer was used to getting fiber-lasered parts. MY customer didn't bother to ask if I was using a fiber or C02 laser. I've had many customers say over the years "can you get this any whiter?" Most of the anodized parts I engrave I have made myself. I had one anodizing shop (very well respected around here) I had to quit using because try as I might I couldn't get anything brighter than a "light gray" color with my LS900 regardless of speed or power. 100 power and 1% speed wouldn't get it any lighter than 100/100. And for what it's worth, my 25w ULS simply refuses to make anything close to a white mark on anodized. I have no idea why, as it has plenty of power to cut thru 1/4" wood and plex in a single pass.

But at least I know how MY anodized parts work. I have a sheet metal shop that sends me their parts, and if I hit it with any more than 15% power at full speed the mark is so dark you can barely see it. And other anodizing is so light my LS900 will remove about HALF of it, but won't remove ALL of it. And because the 900 won't etch the aluminum, the result looks terrible.

I AM going to play with the Triumph to see how light I can get the marking before it does blow out the oxide. But I know this- the mark I'm getting NOW, none of my customers will complain about!

[Ross Moshinsky]

Personally I think you should adjust your customers expectation level. The beauty of anodized aluminum is it marks quickly with low power and no sprays or fillers. If you can get paid for the extra effort, more power to ya, but I think adjusting expectations is also a reasonable approach. I no longer expect any of my sheet goods to come square or withou imperfection. I can call JDS every day or I can accept it is what it is.

On a more practical approach, try this stuff and see if you can achieve a whiter mark running at 100 speed and 50 power at 500-600 dpi. http://www.amazon.com/Turtle-Wax-T-417-Polishing-Compound/dp/B000NWKXRU/ref=pd_sim_auto_1

[Kev Williams]

Adjust my customers expectations? I've been able to double our income since 2008 because I adjust to my customer's expectations!

Here is a sample of the variances of anodizing. Both are "black" anodized, even though the blue one is hardly black. However, it's not blue because it's lightly anodized. And it's a sample of some anodizing that simply will not go white. I just did both pieces a few minutes ago, same settings. I hit the blue one a second time at half the speed. No change. 'm in the process of replacing the blue piece because, while my customer would be okay with the plate color, they won't like the lettering color...

FWIW in 'real life' the plate is darker than it looks in this picture. But so is the etching...


http://www.engraver1.com/erase1/anod2x.jpg

[David Somers]

Kev,

Just curious. Are those two pieces anodized by a small plating company at different times? Or variances from larger commercial sources? That is quite a difference and not what I expected to see. Pretty wild.

Dave

[Dan Hintz]

Kev,

I've found the quality of the anodizing has a major affect on the whiteness of the final mark... a poor anodizing will come out a gray or tan/putty color, but a high-quality anodize will come up white on the CO2. I do a lot of anodized parts, and I always tell my customers my thoughts on the quality level of their anodizer... the smart ones listen and I eventually get in more consistent parts from them.

[Kev Williams]

Dave, those 2 pieces were done by different companies. The 'blue' piece I found in my pile of 1/16" material, and some of that pile is pretty old, like the blue one. There's also a paradox with "quality" anodizing I've found too. The blue piece is REALLY anodized, the oxide surface is very thick. While I've been saying how well my new laser will blast thru anodizing, it won't blast thru this! I tried, and the best it will do is "somewhat" penetrate the oxide. Looks terrible. And as the pic shows the best I can get is a "putty" colored mark! (great description Dan!) I spoke above of changing anodizing shops because I get better laser results from shop "B". Both shops are used extensively by several companies in the area. But shop B has issues at times--

These pics are of one panel I made about 3 years ago. My customer brought it back after it sat in their storeroom for a year. Note that this panel has never seen daylight, so there's no UV issues going on..

First, the engraving quality, very nice and bright...

http://www.engraver1.com/erase2/bada1.jpg




But scan down the panel about 12"---

http://www.engraver1.com/erase2/bada2.jpg




And this is the back side, about half way down. The whole back of the panel looks like this, this is just the worst area...

http://www.engraver1.com/erase2/bada3.jpg


====================
This panel only had faint red showing when it was brought back. It just keeps getting worse.

Out in the back yard I have some anodized panels sitting against the house that get full morning sun. They've been there for over 2 years. Panels from shop A are still black, panels from shop B are nearly white. Fortunately this red-thing is an anomaly but it has happened one other time. And the lack of UV resistance concerns me. Otherwise these panels are great. But I was getting complaints from this and other customers about putty-colored engraving on shop A's panels. So I stay with shop B and warn customers that the panels may fade in the sun....

[Mike Null]

Sloppy anodizing work can ruin a job before you do it. I can usually spot and reject poorly anodized material. One of my customers switched from his anodizer to finishing his parts with powder coat because the anodizer couldn't be relied upon to provide consist quality parts.

[Dan Hintz]

Kev,

If you're having issues with UV resistance, are you sure your anodizer isn't using an organic dye? A high-quality, inorganic black (ala Caswell) will never fade like that, but a cheap organic dye will turn on you like a politician.

[David Somers]

So....are there any indications when you look at a piece of anodized aluminum that it is a poor job? Or perhaps a decent job but with organic inks? Something visible with a loupe or microscope? Or are you just stuck trying a piece out and seeing what happens...learning the hard way in other words. Clearly you can't rely on the color of the engraving as a clue to the quality since Kev's example piece has nice looking anodizing and nice looking white engraving but has clearly been affected by the environment. Are there sources for this stuff we can trust and sources everyone has found that we should stay away from? Obviously local sources are too numerous to cover here, but among the larger, more well know national and regional sources? (and I should include sources in other countries as well....pardon my being US centric sometimes.)

Dave

[Dave Sheldrake]

279291

This was a rifle I built a few years back that was home anodised, a lot depends on the base material and resins that get into the surface (especially on sheet) as well as the quality of the dye. Caswel inks are fantastic as Dan says and rarely if ever leech to secondary colours.

cheers

Dave

[Dan Hintz]

So....are there any indications when you look at a piece of anodized aluminum that it is a poor job? Or perhaps a decent job but with organic inks? Something visible with a loupe or microscope?

None that I'm aware of, but don't take that as hard fact. From a microscopic perspective, I can't imagine being able to see a difference between dyes... there may be chemical tests you could perform (an organic would be easy enough to detect, I imagine), but I don't imagine the test itself would be easy and/or cheap.

[Mike Null]

Sometimes the pieces look contaminated, vary in color or have other visible imperfections. My experience was with an obviously sub-par local shop who did the work for my customer. These pieces would not have been saleable engraved or not.