Skating on Thin Ice

[Ricky Gore]

Hello,
Our laser will be here this week. In the mean time I have already taken an order for engraving on USB Flash Drive / Laser Pointer / Ink Pens. I'm hoping everything works out in my favor, but here's what I did. I had an opportunity to place a bid on this job, and I got it. It's for 232 pens. I was able to buy the pens wholesale, they should be delivered this week also. And I stand to make a net profit of $2306.79 after everything is figured in. That's $9.94 per pen. That is also assuming I have no problems in the process. I did order a few extras, and I have some similar pens around for testing before I start production. So, I guess I'm just really wondering if that is a good profit margin? Is it to low or to high (is there such a thing). I know I'm crazy :eek: for taking this order with no experience with the laser, but I do have an extensive background in Corel Draw, and I did a couple of runs on my own during training. So, wish me luck. I'll let you know how it goes.

Thanks,
Ricky

[Scott Shepherd]

Not sure what's being engraved on it, but if it's only one small line of text on a pen, then consider yourself quite lucky as that's a very expensive price. People have quoted pens on here before in the $1 each range for quantity. If you build a fixture to hold a larger quantity, you're talking about a run time of about 10-15 seconds each. $9 for 15 seconds is not normal. That's $36-54 per minute. A lot of people quote in the $2 per minute range.

Good luck, I hope it all works out easily and you do make that kind of money. Every once in a while you see jobs like this, but it's probably not normal.

[Ricky Gore]

I'm just engraving the company logo in a small area.

The scary thing is, I already have the money. What I don't have yet are the pens and the laser. :eek:

[Joe Pelonio]

If you get in a bind, contact someone close to you on the forum engraver list, at that price you can afford to pay someone else to help or do it. That job will make a good dent in the cost of the laser, keep it up!

[Mike Mackenzie]

If I was you I would really try to get the exact pen they want engraved to be absolutely sure that it will work with the CO2 laser. A lot of companies think laser engraving but some pens are yag laser engraved only and they do not work with the CO2.

[Ricky Gore]

That's what scares me, but the company I am buying the pens from offers laser engraving on them, and they said it was laser engravable. I never thought to ask if they used a YAG. :eek:

There goes my heart again.

[Sandra Force]

YAG is a laser, just a different type. When checking something like whether a pen is laser engravable see if it is CO2 engravable. It is the type of laser you probably ordered as it is the most common.

[Frank Corker]

Ricky, be positive my boy, you'll be fine. With the deal you have arranged, even if you can't do them, you will be able to farm the work out to someone else and keep a customer. I think you will be able to engrave them whatever they are. It's a great order and if you need expertise on the engraving just post for help and you will have it. As Joe has said, find other engravers from the site close to you, they may know someone if they can't do it. Be positive!

[Ricky Gore]

Thanks for the encouraging words Frank. I am very positive usually, and I really think it'll be fine. I just talked to the shipper, and he said the laser was here and should be delivered this morning. Woo hooo... Here begins a new chapter in my life. If all goes well, maybe I can build a nice work shop like yours Frank.

I'll post some images (good or bad) of my results.

Any suggestions on power / speed settings for this material?
It reminds me of anodized aluminum, but I won't know until I get them.
Here's a picture.
http://www.chiggerhill.com/Transfer/Laser_USB.jpg

[Brian Robison]

Ricky, go to Lowes or Home Depot and pick up some cheap plastic or thin wood. Make 2 identical fixtures to hold the pens using the laser. Try to stagger the location of the pens up and down so that there is only one pen that is being lasered at a time, this will make the laser run faster. Load one fixture while the other is in the laser running. Let me know if you need me.

Brian

[Scott Shepherd]

Try to stagger the location of the pens up and down so that there is only one pen that is being lasered at a time, this will make the laser run faster.
Brian

Not sure I understand you here Brian. Care to explain more? I've always engraved a load of them at once. Any reason for wanting to engrave only 1 at a time?

I've done it more like this :

Pen Pen Pen Pen
Pen Pen Pen Pen
Pen Pen Pen Pen
Pen Pen Pen Pen
Pen Pen Pen Pen

Can you explain more?

[Ricky Gore]

I think he means,

--------------------25"----------------
(Area 1)
PEN
.....PEN
PEN
.....PEN
................................(Area 2)
................................PEN
.....................................PEN
................................PEN
.....................................PEN


So that the laser is working on one small area at a time. At least that's what I got from it. And then I can be loading Area 2 while Area 1 is working and Area 1 while area 2 is working. ???


Let me know if I'm off on this Brian.

[Joe Pelonio]

Any suggestions on power / speed settings for this material?
It reminds me of anodized aluminum, but I won't know until I get them.


With that light color, close to the color of natural aluminum, I suspect that engraving off the anodizing will result in a very subtle image at best. In other words, hard to see. It may be that you will have to use Cermark, which only works on bare metal. That means you would have to engrave through to the bare metal, then without moving them, apply cermark, let it dry, and then engrave again to fix the black image.

I hope I'm wrong and it engraves nicely, but the only way to find out is wait for the pens to arrive.

[Tom Cullen]

I think what Brian means by staggering is this: pen Pen Pen
Pen Pen Pen.

all on the one template, as many as will fit , but make sure they are one up one down etc. That way the laser isn't travling across the work area in one long beam ( If you made them all in a row) . it will do one pen , move to the next and so on. Much faster and less chance of messing up all the pens, you can stop and resume as you need.

Tom

[Scott Shepherd]

Ricky, you can't load one area while the other is engraving, no. Once you open the lid, the laser stops firing.

On the Epilog, I did use color mapping and do some rows of them, it does a row of pens, 1 at a time, all the way down the machine, then starts on the next row and goes there.

So you get :

Row A Row B Row C Row D
Row A Row B Row C Row D
Row A Row B Row C Row D
Row A Row B Row C Row D
Row A Row B Row C Row D
Row A Row B Row C Row D

Where it engraves all of Row A, then all of Row B, all of Row C, and then Row D.

[Sandra Force]

What he is suggesting is to make the jig so that you load in a group of pens but stagger the layout so that only one is engraving at a time. In the run pen one engrave then pen 2 and so forth. They will engrave much faster that way rather than the laser traveling across the table doin 3-5 logos at one time.

[Brian Robison]

Yes, like Sandy and Tom said, Scott's way works good too if you don't mind setting up the color mapping option,
I hated it because the first time I did it, the grayscale depths didn't work (DOH) and I messed up quite a few solid walnut plaques $$$$. I didn't notice until I colorfilled them and I had them running 3 wide.This wouldn't matter in this application.

[Ray Uebner]

Well sounds like you have your work cut out. I think you will be just fine and these folks have some good ideas. Please let us know how it works out, and the best of luck to you.