Glassware on Radian (or other galvo CO2)

[Grant Carson]

Hi all,

My company uses a Radian galvo CO2 laser for most of our stainless tumblers with great results. We're trying to move our glassware from our Trotec Speedy 300 w/ rotary to the Radian to speed things up. We do mostly stemless wine glasses and whiskey glasses. We've tried various settings, but have yet to get something repeatable that we would consider acceptable. I was wondering if anyone else on here is doing glassware on a Radian or other galvo CO2. If so, I'd really appreciate any settings or tricks you're using to get good results.

[Steve Utick]

Hi all,

My company uses a Radian galvo CO2 laser for most of our stainless tumblers with great results. We're trying to move our glassware from our Trotec Speedy 300 w/ rotary to the Radian to speed things up. We do mostly stemless wine glasses and whiskey glasses. We've tried various settings, but have yet to get something repeatable that we would consider acceptable. I was wondering if anyone else on here is doing glassware on a Radian or other galvo CO2. If so, I'd really appreciate any settings or tricks you're using to get good results.

Have you called and talked to Radian? I know that Tom and the crew over there do quite a bit of outsourcing work for companies too, and I know they do a lot of tumblers, so I'd expect they can offer some advice on settings, etc.

[Grant Carson]

Have you called and talked to Radian? I know that Tom and the crew over there do quite a bit of outsourcing work for companies too, and I know they do a lot of tumblers, so I'd expect they can offer some advice on settings, etc.

Thanks for the reply Steve. Yes, we've been in contact with them. They are more than happy to help, but we haven't been able to get the settings dialed in over the phone. We were really just hoping to be able to figure this out ourselves before having to have a tech come in.

[Kev Williams]

I have 4 galvo fiber's and 4 C02 gantry machines, no experience with a galvo C02.

However, I do a few hundred wine glasses a year on the C02 machines, and for ME at least, I've found I can only get decent, consistent results if I'm engraving from a halftone bitmap. My 2 Gravograph machines have wonderful photo engraving capabilites, and to do glass I just paint it green and tell the software it's a photo. 80 to 90% grays work too, but plain old RGB green gives me good results.

BUT, my Taiwan made Synrad equipped GCC Explorer, despite several built-into-the-software halftone options, I could never get it to engrave glass consistently.

That is, until I let my Universal 1-Touch photo program create a bitmap for me. BIG difference, much more consistent, much less 'big chunk' random glass fracturing.

I can't say enough good about 1-touch, with it I do most wood photo engraving in my Chinese Triumph now...
One of my favorites, converted by 1-touch and engraved in the Triumph:
From this,
477195

I got this--
477196

For doing glass, I just had 1-Touch covert 90% gray to a bitmap, worked great! Nice thing about 1-Touch, you can try it for free, and the "trial" version is no different than the paid version.

Even creating a bitmap using Corel works pretty good, but for my GCC it likes 1-Touch better.

[Grant Carson]

I have 4 galvo fiber's and 4 C02 gantry machines, no experience with a galvo C02.

However, I do a few hundred wine glasses a year on the C02 machines, and for ME at least, I've found I can only get decent, consistent results if I'm engraving from a halftone bitmap. My 2 Gravograph machines have wonderful photo engraving capabilites, and to do glass I just paint it green and tell the software it's a photo. 80 to 90% grays work too, but plain old RGB green gives me good results.

BUT, my Taiwan made Synrad equipped GCC Explorer, despite several built-into-the-software halftone options, I could never get it to engrave glass consistently.

That is, until I let my Universal 1-Touch photo program create a bitmap for me. BIG difference, much more consistent, much less 'big chunk' random glass fracturing.

I can't say enough good about 1-touch, with it I do most wood photo engraving in my Chinese Triumph now...
One of my favorites, converted by 1-touch and engraved in the Triumph:
From this,
477195

I got this--
477196

For doing glass, I just had 1-Touch covert 90% gray to a bitmap, worked great! Nice thing about 1-Touch, you can try it for free, and the "trial" version is no different than the paid version.

Even creating a bitmap using Corel works pretty good, but for my GCC it likes 1-Touch better.

That's impressive. The amount of detail in that is unreal. I'll try converting a couple of designs to bitmaps on there to see if that helps get more consistent results. I appreciate your response.

[Neville Stewart]

If you want sand etch quality, higher resolution and flawless results, get a 3D UV galvo. Not cheap but so worth it. Last pic 20x, uv-CO2 below. Can’t post iPhone video of Waterloo glass but it’s sitting on the rotary, not rotating on it. I was using my 400 & 360 to do laser mask and sand etch before this.
481425481426481427481428

[Grant Carson]

If you want sand etch quality, higher resolution and flawless results, get a 3D UV galvo. Not cheap but so worth it. Last pic 20x, uv-CO2 below. Can’t post iPhone video of Waterloo glass but it’s sitting on the rotary, not rotating on it. I was using my 400 & 360 to do laser mask and sand etch before this.
481425481426481427481428

Thanks for sharing Neville! That looks great. I've been seeing your posts on your UV laser and have already started to do a little research. That might be the solution our company needs.

[Neville Stewart]

Thank you Grant. I’ve spoken to Tom a number of times. He could definitely fit a UV source to a 3D and you’d be off to the races. Check out Argus lasers also.