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How easy is it engrave the powder coated Polar Camel mugs with a 35 watt laser? I had some issues engraving powder coated Yeti's. Probably would be best to engrave with a few passes but engraving won't always line up a 2nd time with my rotary attachment.
Different colors react differently. Black seems to be the easiest with all mfrs. I have an 80-watt machine and once in a while I run two passes.
I still think you should go after the business. Just slow the machine and increase your dpi. Get some ZEP Fast 505 cleaner at HD. It's the best stuff I've found so far and it's also good for cleaning your machine.
My 30 watt GCC is pretty much my go-to machine for flasks. I have a good 1-pass Cermark setting that gives me great results in one pass, and for powdercoated, I have a great 2-pass run that just about equals the time of the Cermark run. I regularly do Hydroflasks (doing 100 right now), Avex, SIC, Bubba, H2Go and a few others, and have very few problems. Sometimes the Hydroflasks are REALLY thick coated, but as of late they've been much more consistent.
My 40w LS900 is faster on some flasks, but for one thing, it's by far my busiest (and best) machine so it's always busy with other stuff, and for another, and this may sound funny but the beam exander on it works so well that the narrower beam width has a hard time removing all the powdercoating without moving to higher -and slower- Y axis resolution. The GCC I run at 380 res and not all that slowly- First pass just barely makes it to the metal, second pass cleans up. If I go slower, it tends to leave more goo behind. I've tried doing one-pass runs, and it never works. In other words, with powdercoating I've found 'less is more' :)
i run my 100w at only 40% power and do two passes. My buddy works for a shop that has a really old 30w and he can take up to 6 passes. I had problems with my rotary not lining up on second pass and realized it was spinning back to home too fast after the pass. I slowed it down and can repeat same job all day.
I cut some the other day, blue, and did about the same as black yeti. Should be OK, just run a bit slower to start and clean....
I clean up my laser engraving on powdercoat with iso alcohol on a magic eraser. Works really good. Candy powdercoat I have to use a microfiber cloth and alcohol. It scratches really easy.
I use a chuck style rotary on my Fusion M2, so repeatability is a piece of cake. However, if I was still using the gravity rollers I would likely pass on these jobs, or at least be very PICKY as some powder coatings are soooo much thicker than others. I have had a couple that required 3 passes on my 50w. A gravity roller rotary would have cost me a bunch of mugs on that job.
I found that using the Floyd Steinberg dithering method @ 600 dpi and 100 power 8 speed worked decently on my 35 watt laser. I didn't dare try to re-engrave because the tumbler shifted when going back to home on my rotary attachment. I also made sure to focus and level each one individually. Rubbing alcohol on a magic eraser worked really well!
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Nice work. That's interesting; I wouldn't have tried dithering.