Hi guys,
I discovered something that my laser can do that I wasn't sure it would be able to. Successfully cutting through 3/4" Acrylic in one pass and look clean enough for some painted letters. I had a job come in that needed a lot of detail that I would not have been able to achieve with my CNC machine so I thought what the heck, it's worth a try, I have 150watts, let's see what this sucker will do! The results were surprisingly good. There was some distortion visible close up but, a little sanding and some paint and the end result is more than acceptable. Here are some close-up pics of the edges, I tried to get a profile shot so you can see that the amount of distortion was not too bad.
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And here are the final results with some paint.
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For those interested, the settings I used were: 100power, .5 speed, 1000ppi. I turned the air assist up to 40psi so I could make sure it was blowing through the material. The actual thickness of the material was about .695, and I set the focus at .625.
I sure am glad I got the extra power up front, I cut a lot of Rowmark but when I cut any acrylic, or pretty much anything else, it definitely cuts fast. I cut some 1/2" Maple last week and it came out very clean with little charring.
My only question after this is, how much cleaner and at what speed would I be able to do this if I bought the 4" lens? I realize that it has a longer focal length but as I understand, it also takes a lot more power because of the larger beam. Anyone have any experience with using 4" lens on similar material?
Thanks,
Paul