cleaning plastic

I'm mostly up and running on my Artsign JSM3060N. I've already done several jobs, with good results, but I have a questions on how to further improve my engravings.

1) Post engraving cleaning - I have a big job coming up and the customer wants to use a black engraving to white laminate plastic (IPI plastics from Johnson). I'm having a of time cleaning the plates after engraving. Some of the ablated material (flash, I think it is called) is redeposited on the surface after engraving. This leaves black dirt/dust sitting in the engraving in some spots. Getting rid of it all is a . I've been using Johnson Plastics LAZRclean, followed by scrubbing with Goo Gone, but it is really time consuming. Does anyone have any other post-engraving clean up suggestions?

I should also mention that I use a low tack masking tape over the surface prior to scanning.

2) I'm having issues with horizontal line sharpness when scanning. A lot of the panels I do have boxes set around text. The text comes out great, but there is a waviness to horizontal lines. (See picture) Anyone have a tips on tightening up horizontal lines to have the same definition and crispness of vertical lines? See attached picture (As a point of reference, the default for my machine is to scan the laser head on the shorter Y-axis):

Attachment 244897

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Buy some Magic Eraser at the supermarket. It works wonders.

You can reduce the amount of clean up from the black dust if you can laser from bottom to top with your laser. When you laser black/white from top to bottom the dust gets drawn over the engraved area and gets deposited where you just engraved. Try reversing the direction.

As was already said, run bottom up instead of top down. I run virtually everything that way, plastic or not, and there is much less cleanup. What little there is left I cleanup with either denatured alcohol or Plexus plastic cleaner.

Gary

It also seems to me either your drive system isn't tight enough or your DPI is too low. The engraving seems a bit fuzzy up close.

I engrave everything from bottom up. I coat all plastic with a thin layer of dish washing detergent prior to engraving and do not use tape over the material. A quick wash after engraving cleans all except for white and yellow where I use a couple of swipes with a Magic Eraser under running water to clean minor burn residue around cut edges.

I'm reading this with interest, because I haven't tried all of the advice myself yet. However, Krud Kutter (I think) from Homedepot has been mentioned elsewhere and a white pencil eraser works well too, that one I have tried.

White text / black surface seemed to be the worst in my testing, figure out the settings here and everything else should be better. Actually, the pencil eraser didn't quite make the white / black acceptable, but worked well for everything else.

As for the waviness, my only suggestion is to try without the tape. I don't know of any machine settings that would affect that, but I could see the tape being a problem.

Greg

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ross Moshinsky

It also seems to me either your drive system isn't tight enough or your DPI is too low. The engraving seems a bit fuzzy up close.

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That engraving was done at 423 dpi. The text is actually quite sharp (the characters are very small - less than 2 mm in height), but some of it looks out of focus in the picture because of the camera angle that I used. The things that aren't sharp and crisp are the horizontal lines. I will check the drive system the next time I'm on the machine.

mason

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Greg Facer

I'm reading this with interest, because I haven't tried all of the advice myself yet. However, Krud Kutter (I think) from Homedepot has been mentioned elsewhere and a white pencil eraser works well too, that one I have tried.

White text / black surface seemed to be the worst in my testing, figure out the settings here and everything else should be better. Actually, the pencil eraser didn't quite make the white / black acceptable, but worked well for everything else.

As for the waviness, my only suggestion is to try without the tape. I don't know of any machine settings that would affect that, but I could see the tape being a problem.

Greg

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The front engrave black/white and white/black laminates have been problematic. But all of my reverse engrave laminates cut nicely and require only minimal cleaning.

when I run Black and white I tape the plastic in place, run the outline first till it is 95% cut out. then I use Goo Gone and clean all of the crap off, then clean it with sparkle (windex) to remove the goo gone. then I run my raster and take it out an snap them free.

I have to agree with running bottom to top on all engraving. I did a large job (32 1/4 sheets) white engrave / brown field. I had similar issue with the white not being white after engraving and spending a lot of time cleaning post engraving. I found that cleaning the stock first with LAZRclean (mentioned earlier) and then engraving it almost acted as a repellent of dust

I wipe all plastic with wd40 works every time!