cleaning plastic

[Mason Atom]

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):

IMG_4380.jpg

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

[Mike Null]

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

[Darryl Hazen]

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.

[Gary Hair]

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

[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.

[Randy Digby]

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.

[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

[Mason Atom]

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.

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

[Mason Atom]

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

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.

[matt aiken]

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.

[Jeff Toro]

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

[Brian J Rogalny]

I wipe all plastic with wd40 works every time!