Results from my Triumph

[Kev Williams]

Been able to spend a little time with my new toy during the holidays, thanks to many of my customers taking the week off!

Very interesting machines these Chinese lasers, about night & day from my 25w NH Optima (ULS) and my 40w NH LS900. Lots of settings and parameters to figure out as you go.

This being a large machine (1300x900mm) it's designed more for cutting than laser engraving, and it's max speed is 500mm/second. My ULS is a little faster, but my LS900 flies in comparison.

But that's just rastering. In doing some test cuts on 1/16" engraving stock, some weird shaped badges that takes my 900 about 6-7 seconds to cut, the Triumph does in 2-3 seconds. 12" circles cut about 3-4x faster.

I bought this with an 80w laser- which I find out is actually a 90w according to Reci, which tested at 110w. I'm assuming 80 is about where it ends up at the 27mw recommended max...

Anyway, I bought this thing because (A) it was cheap, and (B) I can laser etch 2 of the larger 500x800mm anodized control panels I build at one time, whereas my LS900 requires two setups for each panel. And I love how it does anodized aluminum! This thing doesn't just 'bleach' the die out of the anodizing, it vaporizes it and actually etches the bare aluminum. It will do this at full speed and 90% power. My other lasers will only vaporize "cheap" anodizing, and only enough to make it look terrible. The Triumph turns it nearly white, just like a fiber or yag would do! Check the pics, very consistent and bright, and in the closeup you can see the etching into the metal. (these letters are about 2" tall)








Another reason I bought it was hopefully to do Cermark/SS etching faster. Well, sadly, I've given up that idea altogether. I've had great success with Cermark for many years with my other lasers, but this thing just manhandles Cermark. If I run the laser at anything over 28% power and full speed, the laser pretty much vaporizes the Cermark, leaving a tinny-brown mark. At around 22% I get a nice black mark, however, the laser seems to fire hotter across longer expanses (like the tops of T's and E's") than it does shorter expanses (like the bottoms and sides of T's and E's)-- so what I get are letters with brown long spots and black short spots. If I adjust the power down, then I get black long spots and Cermark that washes off the short spots. Spent a whole day trying to find the sweet spot before finally deciding there isn't a sweet spot.

But what I did find is, like with aluminum, this laser will actually etch stainless. However, I kind of have the same problem as with Cermark, the etching isn't consistent. But I haven't spent a lot of time with experimenting yet. Check the pics, first pic shows how the burn color changed from top to bottom, like it was overheating the metal at first, then leveled off. (In other samples, it was reversed, with the bottom looking overheated) Note the "corridor", this is a Cermark etch that was already on my test piece my 900 did, much blacker color. In the closeup, check the etching-- My other lasers won't physically touch metals whatsoever, but this thing sure does! (these letters are about 3/8" tall)









And then there's wood... Man, does this thing work fast in wood! Check this sample, the wood is maple, text is 5/8" tall and about 10" long. The depth isn't apparent in the pics, but my mic's average it out at .075" deep. It did this in 3 minutes 28 seconds. It would take my 900 over 15 minutes to engrave this that deep!








While it does have it's limitations and it won't do everything I may like it to do, it'll definitely be making me some money, and leaving the other lasers open for other work at the same time! For what I paid for it, you'll never hear me complain!


<edit> - And to Triumph's credit, when I went to adjust the mirrors, after preparing for a day of adjusting I found every mirror was perfect right out of the crate. The only thing I've had to do was level the table.

[gary l roberts]

It's always good to get a review, good or bad. That's what make the forum such a helpful place. Nice work and happy burning.

[Scott Shepherd]

Kev, I think you might want to take another whack at the Cermark. There's no reason it won't work. I can't believe it's blasting through the cermark. I've run cermark at 5% speed on a 75W machine and it didn't blast though it. You've got something else going on. Do the Cermark test grid and you'll find the sweet spot, but there's no reason your cermark marks should look like they do in that photo.

Do the grid and you'll find the right spot and it'll be black just like the other machine.

[Kev Williams]

Hey Scott-- there IS no cermark in the above photos (except "corridor"), that 'blood of dracula' text was done on bare stainless-- These pics below show what I'm getting WITH Cermark-- racing stripes...

The mark across the short areas is nice & black, but the long expanses, not so much. This text is fairly large as you can tell from my thumb, I can probably get great results with much smaller text, but still...

If memory serves this plate (ran with a batch of others) was done at 24% power and 500mm/s (full speed)...If I lower the power enough to get a nice black across the long areas, the Cermark doesn't stick well to the short areas, which is just as bad. What I haven't played with too much yet is slower speeds, but only because, as I understand it, these DC lasers don't work so well at low power settings. The lowest setting I've ever used at all so far is 12% to test run some Rowmark Lasermax, which it did quite well with...

There's an enigma with these Cermark settings I don't quite understand-- On my LS900, I engrave black anodized alum. at 100% power and 80% speed at 500 dpi/ppi, and get a nice white mark. To do Cermark on this machine I run 100% power and 15 to 18 speed at 500 or more dpi settings. Yet with the Triumph, while 30% power and full speed seems to blast away Cermark, the same speed and settings will barely turn anodized aluminum a light gray--?? Some wavelength issues maybe? I did run a 'reverse' Cermark test using 50% power and 200mm/s speed. The result was like I never put Cermark on in the first place, left a tan mark that looked more like metal discoloration. I can't find that piece, so I'm going to do another test shortly--

In the laser software is a slew of settings-- space speed, space acc, initial speed, min acc, cut acc, sweep acc, speed ratio, cut acc acc, space acc acc-- and that's just on ONE menu... I assume most of these have to do with vector cutting more than rastering?

[Dave Sheldrake]

Careful with bare metals Kev, backscatter can destroy the optical train and tube.

cheers

Dave

[Kev Williams]

Thanks, Scott, for telling me to not give up...!

Well speaking of enigma's-- Funny thing with my old lasers, speed and power settings are pretty much proportional- as in, 30 power and 30 speed renders pretty much the same results as 100 power and 100 speed. That doesn't seem to be even close to the case with the Triumph! I ran the piece below. Main change was I ran it at 250mm/s, half as fast. So I figured half the power would do the same... NOPE!

I kept the speed the same but changed the power settings on the fly. You can easily tell where I made the changes in the closeup--

First, I ran it at 30 power, expecting it to burn away the cermark, ran about 15 stokes-
lowered the power to 25 for another 15 or so strokes...
From here on I counted 50 strokes per setting, which went: 20, 17, 14, 10-- from 14 to 10 the burn flash went from bright white to a hardly-any-at-all faint orange. From there I went 11, 12, 13, and for fun, 50% power for the final lap.

power settings 10 and 11 left nothing. No surprise, but the higher powers DID surprise me, as they follow no rhyme or reason in relation to SPEED! Expecting to get brown results from the higher settings I got GREAT results! I can only assume the laser's power supply is compensating for speed vs power in a totally different way than my other machines!

Thanks again Scott! More to figure out, but I suppose that's half the fun!

[Dan Hintz]

Why would you choose to completely blow away the oxide layer on anodized aluminum rather than just open the pores and bleach the dye?

[David Somers]

Dan,

I understand the idea behind anodizing aluminum, basically a controlled electrochemical oxidation of the Aluminum surface with a dye added if desired. And I thought I understood that laser engraving anodized materials was a bleaching of the dye, leaving the actual oxidation in place. And I understand that it is best to simply "bleach" the dye with the laser rather than also removing the anodized surface or else you subject the now bare aluminum to uncontrolled oxidation which would deteriorate that surface over time, much like the schnoodly look of an unprotected aluminum door or window as it ages.

But I am not sure about your term "open the pores?" What does that mean?

And I was also curious how you tell that your engraver's settings are simply "bleaching the dye" and not burning through to bare aluminum?

Hope you are getting to play with the Trotec today instead of playing with the entertainment center!!! And if you are playing with the Trotec feel free to absolutely and totally ignore my questions in favor of recreational Trotecing!!!! <grin>

Dave

[Dave Sheldrake]

Hi Dave,

Anodise looks basically like a honeycomb, when it is dyed the small pores (hexagonal pockets) are filled with a dye that is then enclosed by collapsing the top of the pocket. The top surface of the now enclosed pocket is transparent allowing you to see the colours.

Easiest way to tell is a continuity test, aluminium hydroxide doesn't conduct, the pin of a continuity meter will tell you if you have burned away the anodise if you burn away the anodise itself, you risk creep back as oxides get under the anodised surface.

I used to anodise all my own stuff but gave up in the end as the controls on acid storage was getting silly (you an also anodise titanium using Cola and change colours using the amps)

cheers

Dave

[Dan Hintz]

I am not sure about your term "open the pores?" What does that mean?

Anodise looks basically like a honeycomb, when it is dyed the small pores (hexagonal pockets) are filled with a dye that is then enclosed by collapsing the top of the pocket. The top surface of the now enclosed pocket is transparent allowing you to see the colours.

Easiest way to tell is a continuity test, aluminium hydroxide doesn't conduct, the pin of a continuity meter will tell you if you have burned away the anodise if you burn away the anodise itself, you risk creep back as oxides get under the anodised surface.

What Dave said ^^^

I was also curious how you tell that your engraver's settings are simply "bleaching the dye" and not burning through to bare aluminum?

Anodizing is pretty tough stuff overall, so you have to go out of your way to beat it up. At a typical western machine's 75ips, something in the area of 15W should give you a nice clean bleaching. Somewhere around the 25-30W mark you'll start to dig away the grown oxide layer and get down to bare aluminum again... you can tell because the pretty white you should have from a quality anodizing disappears and is replaced by the cold gray of the aluminum underneath. That's a relatively wide margin to play with, so you don't have to be scared of it. Find the minimum that works on a few test pieces, then bump the power up a few percent on all subsequent pieces to be sure.

[David Somers]

Thanks Dave!

That is pretty interesting. I didn't realize about pockets being formed during the oxidation process. Will have to pull out a microscope and see if I can see it. (Or is it far smaller than I could resolve with a decent compound scope?) Pretty fascinating. What Dan said makes sense now.

I can imagine creep back could be pretty fast under the right conditions. Exposed aluminum in my old home in HI deteriorated amazingly fast. (I lived just a mile from the vent of Kilauea, the active volcano. Lots of sulphur dioxide in the air, 9ppm at times, and that stuff turns to sulphuric acid when combined with water. Tough environment.

I was wondering about folks anodizing at home on a small scale. I have done copper plating for giggles. That is a common process among jewelers and anodizing titanium is also common among jewelers. Interesting stuff.

So....the next pesky question that comes to mind is how often do you need to recalibrate your settings when you are engraving anodized aluminum? I know the CO2 lasers change output over time, and certainly other things can cause variations as well. How often do you need to check and see if you are burning through to the bare aluminum? Or is there enough oxide there that you are fairly safe once you have an initial setting that is working for you?

Thanks again!!! Fun stuff!

Dave

[Scott Shepherd]

So....the next pesky question that comes to mind is how often do you need to recalibrate your settings when you are engraving anodized aluminum? I know the CO2 lasers change output over time, and certainly other things can cause variations as well. How often do you need to check and see if you are burning through to the bare aluminum? Or is there enough oxide there that you are fairly safe once you have an initial setting that is working for you?

Ummmm...never. Unless your tube is dying. I still use the same settings today as I did when my laser first showed up.

The only issues I've found is that not all anodizing is the same thickness. Factory anodized stock is very uniform and nice. You can buy sheet stock anodized and it does wonderfully. But when you get into machined parts that some machine shop took to some plating company, the results can be quite different. We just finished 4000-5000 anodized pieces a couple weeks ago. The customer sand blasted them prior to anodizing, so they had a different feel to them and they took different settings to get the right mark.

[David Somers]

Scott, after asking that question it dawned on me that variations would tend to reduce power output/effectiveness anyway through an aging tube, mirrors and lenses getting dirty or simply aging, etc. Any drift should simply result in the engraver taking off less of the oxide rather than more?

I can see a fairly large variation between a factory anodizing and a plating company doing smaller runs. Lots of variables involved ranging from the power and condition of the rectifiers they use, the anodes and their condition, the acid solution, contaminants, post plating process variations, etc.

Interesting stuff!! Certainly makes a huge difference on the durability and appearance of aluminum!

Thanks for your experiences Scott!!

Dave

[Dan Hintz]

Scott, after asking that question it dawned on me that variations would tend to reduce power output/effectiveness anyway through an aging tube, mirrors and lenses getting dirty or simply aging, etc. Any drift should simply result in the engraver taking off less of the oxide rather than more?

Hence my suggestion to ad a few more percent to the power level once you've found the minimum... takes care of any minor variances in tube power as it warms up for the day, changes over the months/years, etc.

It should be noted that you're not removing oxide until you get relatively high in power... minor variations in power near the low end of the scale will simply bleach less/more strongly.

[Dave Sheldrake]

I was wondering about folks anodizing at home on a small scale

Costs about $100 to set up a small anodising unit of around 10 gallons

I'll scribble it into an email and send it over

cheers

Dave