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Thread: Trouble cutting acrylic

  1. #1

    Question Trouble cutting acrylic

    I'm fairly new to CNC. Most of the stuff I've been doing over the last month is etching on cermark or engraving on powder coated YETIs and alternative brands. But I wanted to do a unique Christmas present by etching a 12" disk of 1/4" cast acrylic and then cutting it into a jigsaw puzzle. I'm using a Trotec 300 Speedy for this. The etching went well. But when I tried to do the cut using a red pattern sent from Corel Draw, all I got was more etching - even at 100% power. I was using the default material settings in the material database for 1/4" cast acrylic, and even slowed it down a bit. But nothing worked. I'm running out of time before Christmas and am curious what I might be doing wrong. I think it is a 60w laser (might be 80w). What do you recommend that I set the cutting parameters to? And what size cutting lines should I be using? Any suggestions or pointers would be *greatly* appreciated.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Sep 2004
    Location
    Dexter Missouri
    Posts
    21
    Sounds like you need to set your line width to hairline

  3. #3
    Thx. I'll give that a try.

  4. #4
    Hairline and rgb red. See if your material settings are set to do what you want.
    Mike Null

    St. Louis Laser, Inc.

    Trotec Speedy 300, 80 watt
    Gravograph IS400
    Woodworking shop CLTT and Laser Sublimation
    Dye Sublimation
    CorelDraw X5, X7

  5. #5
    I checked the rgb. I'm at 255,0,0. What speed should I be using?

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Mar 2014
    Location
    Iowa USA
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    4,441
    Quote Originally Posted by Daniel Eaton View Post
    I checked the rgb. I'm at 255,0,0. What speed should I be using?
    Line width at Hairline? Speed for vector cutting can vary and as to what power setting. On my ULS it was about 3 mm Sec on speed and power at 100% Yours might vary a lot for acrylic from mine.
    Retired Guy- Central Iowa.HVAC/R , Cloudray Galvo Fiber , -Windows 10

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Nov 2006
    Location
    Maple, Ontario, Canada
    Posts
    1,010
    With my 60W cutting 1/4" cast acrylic settings are power-100 and speed-0.50 one pass.
    Trotec Speedy 300 - 60w, with Quatro CSA-626 fume extraction
    Xenetech 1625 x2,
    New Hermes TX pantograph, CG4 cutter grinder
    Brady Globalmark2 label printer,
    Assortment of custom tooling , shears & punches, heat bender.
    Software: Xenetech XOT, Corel X3, Bartender label software

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Dec 2012
    Location
    Rickmansworth, England
    Posts
    164
    deffo line width not set to hairline if its engraving and not cutting, assuming red is set to cut in the material database
    Trotec Speedy 300 50W
    Gantry CNC Router/Engraver
    Various softwares
    Always keen to try something new

    Please don't steal - the government hates competition

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