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Mark Mullis
10-16-2005, 12:14 AM
I am still looking at lasers and had a question about the rotary fixtures that are offered. I have read post here that said some are not very good. And wanted to know if they were even needed to laser small baseball bats and and flashlight barrells? How much lasering can you do without turning these items? Thanks for your help.

Brent Brod
10-16-2005, 12:57 AM
The beam is focused in such a way that it is only powerful enough to do work in a narrow depth range. Probably 1/8 to 3/16 would be my esitmate. If you were going to work on a cylinder you'd have to figure how far around it you could go without varying the depth more than that.

I think the cylinder attachments would do pretty good for raster engraving on things like flashlights and small bats. In raster mode, the laser head moves back and forth while the cylinder is slowly rotated to simulated moving down the page.

If you were going to try doing something in vector mode, it might prove difficult with some of the attachments that don't have a positive clamping mechanism. In vector mode drawing a diagonal line would require the laser head and the rotation to occur at the same speed. If the thing is having to turn the object quickly back and forth, it might lose indexing. I've had that happen experimenting with vector cutting a mask that was applied to a heavy glass. When the thing reversed directions, the glass wanted to keep going and slipped some.

Keith Outten
10-16-2005, 7:46 AM
Mark,

You can engrave round objects without a rotary attachment but you are limited to one line at a time. I built a simple wooden fixture to engrave pens, it is used for first and last names only. This same type of fixture could be used for flashlights and other items that are circular.

If you need to engrave a logo or large graphics you will need a rotary attachment which will allow the engraver to spin the object while the laser beam moves back and forth in raster mode.

Mark Mullis
10-16-2005, 1:21 PM
Will rotary fixtures only work with their brand counterparts. I had read that some brands work better than others, didn't know if you could use a rotary fixture from one company on another company's laser. I had been leaning toward the Laser Pro brand of laser, but read that their rotary fixture was not to good. Any one having good results with their fixture?

Lee DeRaud
10-16-2005, 1:35 PM
Will rotary fixtures only work with their brand counterparts. I had read that some brands work better than others, didn't know if you could use a rotary fixture from one company on another company's laser.Uh, no. It's not just a "fixture": if it was you could just build one yourself. It actually interfaces with the laser's motion system, so what you're suggesting would work about as well as using an Epson cartridge in a Canon printer.

Joe Pelonio
10-16-2005, 2:37 PM
I agree with what was said before, you can do bats and flashlights with out it but it's limited. I have done up to 1" square on beer glasses without trouble, and 2" acrylic tubes up to 3 lines text but beyond that you'd have to rotate
manually to get back in focus. Since I don't plan to do much of that I did not get the attachment. My way since the top and bottom are in less focus than the center you wouldn't want to try a highly detailed graphic. On Bats, watch out for whether the machine is capable of the length. My Epilog 24tt is not, though you can cheat and remove the end of the case.
For vector cutting again with some imagination you can do it, I was able to make square holes in acrylic tubing by making the square in 3 sections, auto focus on the center, then manual on the top and bottom thirds. Just have to make a jig to clamp it in to make sure it cannot move at all between runs.
Again it's very rare that I get such a job.

Hilton Lister
10-16-2005, 2:43 PM
There is nothing wrong with the LaserPro Rotary. It's just a little tricky to get accurate placement. You may have some trouble if the article you are doing is quite heavy as it doesn't clamp very tightly (you don't want glass too tight anyway)It's certainly worth persevering with, even though I personally find laser glass a poor substitute for sandcarving.

Gary Shoemake
10-16-2005, 8:39 PM
Just a note to say that I have had my laser for a little over two years and have used the rotary numerous times with great sucess. The only problem I had was a switch between drivers. The old one once you inputted the circumference and it gave you the right measurments for the y axis. The newer driver doesn't do as good a job. So I have both installed and use the old one just to get the proper y axis and then transfer it to the new driver and away we go.

Mark Mullis
10-17-2005, 8:04 PM
You will have to excuse my ingorance Lee, I am just learning about this stuff and thought it might work as well my HP printer with my Gateway computer. If it just had the right drivers.

Lee DeRaud
10-17-2005, 8:54 PM
You will have to excuse my ignorance Lee, I am just learning about this stuff and thought it might work as well my HP printer with my Gateway computer.Oh right, good luck getting that to work!:eek: :rolleyes: :p

(Just kidding. Sometime I'll relate the saga of the problems my dad had getting an HP computer to talk to an HP printer and an HP scanner at the same time. Short version: HP ended up sending a guy to his house, and he couldn't make it work either...Dad switched to Dell.:cool: )