Experiences with Enduramark & Laserbond vs Cermark-?

[Kev Williams]

Just curious-- I've exclusively used Cermark all my laser life, but I'm frustrated with the fact I can't get my Chinese Triumph to render a "usable" flat/matte, charcoal gray/black mark. The only usable I get is a semi-gloss, dark brown that's not all that dark of a mark, which disappears depending on lighting angle. Over the weekend I test engraved a low-carbon steel (customer's description) sword blade using Cermark in the Triumph, I went slow with probably 70 watts of power and all I got was a blotchy medium brown, almost tan.

On stainless I CAN get it to go black, but it takes a balancing act of near-perfect focusing ("de-focusing" actually), power and speed-- which is usually all for naught because just when I think I hit the sweet spot after the first rinse, a final rubdown with a worn out magic eraser and warm water will wash half of it off. And this is not sometimes; I've never yet gotten a well fused black using the Triumph...

And I can't have holographic brown. The large panels I mark must appear as close to as having been screen printed flat black as possible.

I did the Endurmark test when the $10 test kits came out- and the Triumph actually did produce an actual black mark, every bit as black as my RF lasers give me with Cermark! But-- it was inconsistent, the darkness of the mark was 100% relative to the amount of Enduramark that was brushed on. So the peaks and valleys left by the brush resulted in very black (heavy amounts in the peaks) to several shades lighter into grays (light amounts in the valleys). I know they've reformulated but I'm pretty sure this would have to be sprayed to suit my needs. I gave up spraying Cermark because (A) I found out I was using much less when brushing it on, and (B) I can brush in on much faster, because (C) I don't I have to stop every 30 seconds and stick a wire thru the nozzle of a brush - But I'm okay with spraying if need be!

Anyway- This has all been discussed before, but with Laserbond, not so much, so I hope I'm not -- TOO much..

This year my best (the one who makes me the most $$ ) customer has increased their work to me nearly 4-fold... ironically I do no stainless marking work for them, but their needs have gotten it to the point that my 2 RF lasers now have waiting lists for jobs, and because SS marking is slow, I'm now in need of another machine just to handle the stainless jobs... But I already have the machine!

I'm about to purchase a small amount of both Enduramark and Laserbond in hopes one or both will make my Triumph useful for stainless work -- I'm also considering buying a little LMM-14 for good measure...

I'd like to hear about what others are using, likes, dislikes--

[Trey Tull]

My largest customer (volume and $$) sends over parts that the LMM6000 will not work on (don't know why, but it looks terrible). I tried the LMM14 and was able to get a nice black mark but the p/s settings were far from the recommended started point. I also noticed that the more chemical that was applied, the darker the mark. Due to the volume of parts that the time it takes, I'm spraying instead of brushing it on.

I don't have any experience with the other brands but I would recommend giving the 14 a shot.

[Kev Williams]

Thanks for the review, good to hear! --

Just ordered 100gm of Laserbond, and 50gm each of EnduraMark and LMM-14 ...

[Trey Tull]

Another thing to mention is that the LMM14 nozzle doesn't get clogged like the LMM6000.

[Patrick Gardner]

I've never gotten a black mark that I am happy with. I have found that spraying on a satin clear coat helps to remove the hologram effect. It does change the look of the stainless. So if the piece has a finish that needs to match other non engraved pieces, this can be an issue. We use a clear flat/satin acrylic polyurethane, but I would think a spray can version satin clear would work also. I'm going to try the enduramark next go around. I like how the containers have a fill line for the correct dilution. Maybe it won't clog and give perfect results. I hope.

[Kev Williams]

Clearcoat would solve ALL my problems, but I can't use clearcoat on anything that will live outdoors, which is nearly all the stainless I do..

[Trey Tull]

Why do you think your triumph has problems with generating a black mark? I've only had two lasers, one glass tube and now my ULS, so I am just curious?

[Kev Williams]

I wish I knew! What I do know, is no matter how hard I try, I cannot make my RF lasers engrave Ceramark to match how the Triumph does it- and vice versa...
this is a couple of shots of a big SS operator panel, the GCC engraved everything but the the FAT outlines, those are done by the Triumph-
My customer is okay with it, thankfully, as the Triumph engraves them at least 45 minutes faster...! (they take 3 hours to engrave even with the faster outlines)

This first pic is representative of how the whole panel looks when viewed head-on,
even though the thick lines are noticeably lighter, not too bad--
c2.jpg

-but rotate the panel, the GCC version stays black, the Triumph lines fade away to near nothing...
c1.jpg

another place on the same panel, a bit of a low angle, still not too bad--
C3.jpg

but the big line fades...
in this shot you can see that even the GCC markings can lighten up somewhat,
but nothing like the Triumph's...
c4.jpg

FWIW, the GCC runs 100% power (30w), 15 speed (about 200mm/s), and as long as the mirrors are clean and she's in focus, it looks great-
My LS900 lays down almost exactly the same marking but at just a tad faster since it's a 40w machine. But here's the puzzler, I can run both machines MUCH slower, and still get the same nice black mark..

The Triumph I run at 200mm/s, and 18% power, which factors out an 'actual' 25% of 80 watts, or only 20 watts-- but adding more power just makes the mark worse instead of better! Also, I use a 3" lens on these outlines, but I've used a 2" many times and tried my 1.5" lens a couple times just for fun. Nothing much change. If I lower the power to where I get a better black, the Cermark doesn't fuse well and it washes off; if I de-focus a ton, I can finally get a black mark that actually sticks, but at the expense of sharp details; like, the sharp points on those Times New Roman letters on that panel, they won't exist...

[Mike Null]

Kev

I do a fairly high volume of Stainless Steel items, mostly with Cermark. One thing you and I do differently if I recall a previous post correctly is our dpi setting. I use 600 dpi for all my Cermark work and I believe you use something in the 300 range.

I have tested Enduramark and get a dense black mark with it but it is difficult to brush on and I returned to using Cermark LMM6000.

[Trey Tull]

Kev, that's nuts. Is that just a plain ss panel...no coatings or anything? On my ULS 60w machine, I run cermark at 100p/47s/300dpi/500ppi (not sure what that 47 translates to is mm/s). That is with a 2.0 lens.

Have you tried comparing brushing/spraying cermark? It almost looks like there isn't enough cermark and your laser is blasting it away. I have seen that with my machine when using cermark on glass.

How big is that panel and how thick is that line? I have some big pieces of scrap stainless laying around, I'll draw a long line and give it a shot.

[Kev Williams]

Mike, I use 500 lines per inch in most cases, 600 to 800 for high detail, and in the X axis on my LS900 I usually run 800ppi-
When engraving (or when trying to) SS on the Triumph I set the gap for .045, which works out to 565 lines-

These things are loads of fun-- these 2 pics I took before I ever got the Triumph.
Lots of text and borders, lots to go wrong
STlarge.jpg

One in progress back in the day, you can see this panel was sprayed,
not brushed. I DO like the even-ness and consistency of spraying,
I just don't LIKE spraying- the thinning, plugging nozzles, needing
a special place to do it, air pressure settings, etc etc...
STlarge-cm.jpg

Back to Triumph doing these- Those big outlines on the panel (small ones too for that matter)- they're a full-on vector-run island fill @.003" apart, which is 333 lines per inch spacing. I've tried .002"/500, makes no difference on the Triumph...I've also tried raster engraving them in sections to 'save time', lol- took my LS900 1:45 to raster the outlines. Those outlines as one piece are too large for both my LS900 and the GCC so the pattern has to be split, and the panel has to be rotated and re-aligned (panel is 24 x 28, LS900 covers 24x24, GCC covers 20x38, both just miss )... And it still takes either machine around 45 minutes to run the outlines. The Triumph does it all in one pass, in 18 minutes. Now if only it wouldn't do a lousy job of it!

[Kev Williams]

My bottle of LaserBond came in, so I did some side-by-side testing, hoping for some good news...
this is my Triumph test, speeds etc as shown, outline was 200sp/24hi-20lo power...
What I did different than usual was to do an in-focus with the 2" lens, normally I use a slightly
un-focused 3" lens. The LaserBond is very dark as you can see...
marka1.jpg
-it seems to be thicker than Cermark, and seems to not settle as bad, but then I just have a small bottle.
Info said thin 1:1 for brushing, I did 1.5:1, and it's still a bit thick, to the point it didn't flow out well, you can see the brush marks, mostly towards the right.

But alas, the results of the LaserBond were nearly identical to Cermark. And as you can see in this pic, I didn't quite get all the LaserBond washed off, and I used a magic eraser. But the mark itself shows very little difference. Not a bad thing to match Cermark, I was just hoping IT would go blacker, and it didn't
--also, note there's almost no difference based on my settings...
marka3.jpg

So now the metal v glass laser comparison, I just ran 2 lines and the border-
mark1.jpg

-The LS900 engraving, as usual, is much blacker.
mark2.jpg

-- zoomed in, it's more readily apparent...
marka2.jpg

And with some bright sun overhead, the metal laser wins hands-down over the glass laser...
mark3.jpg

And for those with good eyes who may have noticed the lumpy-looking LS900 engraving, it's because I just copied the source between the 2 computers using remote-desktop, and the detail got lost in translation, big time... (glad I found this out while testing and not with someone elses job!)
mark4.jpg


In many cases the results I'm getting with the glass laser would be sufficient, but after many years of nice & near-black, I'm spoiled

SO, I still have the LMM-14 and EndurMark coming. I'm not expecting anything different from the LMM-14, in fact I'm expecting it to look, feel and engrave identical to the LaserBond. But I am hopeful the Endurmark will work better in the Triumph

[Scott Shepherd]

We are using Laserbond in a spray can these days. We can run it faster by a couple % on the speed and the mark looks the same as Cermark. I don’t like the way it washes off. Cermark seems to come off easier.

We have a lot of stainless marking in the queue for the next couple of months so we’ll have a good sense of it in the coming months but so far, with 3-4 cans in the rear view mirror, I’m happy with it.

[Kev Williams]

Interesting on the faster engraving, wonder how it'll work on aluminum, which I do in the Triumph..? Just got an 800 piece order of aluminum panels in today...

[Scott Shepherd]

Interesting on the faster engraving, wonder how it'll work on aluminum, which I do in the Triumph..? Just got an 800 piece order of aluminum panels in today...

Not sure about that, I haven't tried it. I don't like marking aluminum with any of that stuff because I don't think it sticks like I think it should, but I might have to try it. We rarely get requests for that, so I'll try a piece for fun.

We've got a 400 piece stainless job that's 4" x 6" each plate to get done next week so we'll put the LaserBond through some more real-world testing next week. That and a couple of huge stainless plates. I guess I better buy some more LB today!