Full-Color Laser Engraving

[Lorene Fangman]

Mitchell and David, I'm sorry, your right, I shouldn't be so bitchy, probably PMS 'ing when I wrote it , and I have four kids, so they were probably on my mind as ususal . I see your point in trying to get the technical answers out there, I was just responding to mainly the durablity of the product and what a good idea it was to come up with something in the line applying paint to the substrates. I do wish they would come out with a video of how it is applied so we can see if this is something we would like to tackle, and have the added expense to our work. On their site they have the finished video of products but no application videos. I also would like to see how the effects of this type of application effects our "air" and how we would have to set up exhaust systems to get rid of the chemicals released when applied by the laser, because as we know now, some of the fumes are not good for you. I do apologize if I made you upset in anyway not intended, trust me....I'm usually pretty nice, once you get to know me and you guys are way more knowledgeable then me from what I read, so I am sorry if I offended you in any way!! FRIENDS? lorene

[Dave Fifield]

As promised, here are the pictures from Ed Albrite. I have made a webpage with them all on here too. Click on the pictures to see them in high resolution.

















I'm sure Ed will come on and explain a bit about each of these pictures. The finished images look very good to me. There may be something to this process if the price is right.....

Cheers,

[Jeff Lehman]

But it gets very close to the look and durability that dye-sublimation achieves. Perhaps it can be applied to some surfaces that cannot be use in dye-sub apps.

My personal opinion is that the narrow market that will result from licensing may hurt them, but hey, that's what our free market is all about!

[Joe Pelonio]

Not bad, but still not close to the quality of the graphics on the imaginetile products.

[Ed Maloney]

Any additional news on this?

[Jack Harper]

You can follow the progress of the patent application on the USPTO sit at
http://portal.uspto.gov/external/por...dSearchOption=
the case number is 11551601

Also, you can read the full patent application detailing the process at
http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-...RS=20070092295

Note: If you go to the link it may give you a pass phrase screen first. After entering in the two words and submitting, just re-paste the link and it will appear.

In looking over the patent process, the part about changing the frequency for each of the cmyk color separation layers is a long used process in the printing industry and is in no way new.

[Dan Starr]

It seems to me that one very important question is missing from this discussion. How long does it take to prepare your image for this process? Seems to me that might be why it takes 3 days of training.

[Rodne Gold]

I see no announcements or further examples of this process by those that have bought into it on any laser boards? No new success stories or case studies , real world projects etc?
The silence on this seems deafening!!

[Jack Harper]

I can,t speak for how the company actually does this process. However, from the position of time to CMYK separate a file and change its angle and dot size, this takes just a a few minutes. Of course you could just as easily change the dot size slightly by adjusting your laser focus.

[Dan Hintz]

Did anyone see a booth by Atomic Art at ARA this year?

I ask because I noticed their utility patent was issued a non-final rejection in December. Of course, we don't have access to the grounds their claim was denied upon, but I'd be interested to know if it was due to lack of novelty. I wonder if they will modify their claims and attempt a refile...

[Roy Brewer]

Did anyone see a booth by Atomic Art at ARA this year?

Dan,

Yes, they were there. They've terminated their exclusive agreement with Vytec and turned marketing over to Louie Alvarez.

[Rodne Gold]

Sounds real messy to me - all the vapourware and the promises of this being the next best thing to sliced bread in the laser world but I dont see any results or much mention of any success stories or of ppl making bushel loads of money out of this....

[Dan Hintz]

Sounds real messy to me - all the vapourware and the promises of this being the next best thing to sliced bread in the laser world but I dont see any results or much mention of any success stories or of ppl making bushel loads of money out of this....

Well, this is what happens when you try to push a product/service to market when it's not ready for prime time (I'm guilty of it myself from time to time). the idea had/has merit, but the execution was seriously flawed:
1) Any patents possible remained on shaky ground (and as we now see, even shakier after being rejected!).
2) Management was not personable, as we saw with the first post from the company owner (Thom), and there were no friendly salespeople to act as a buffer.
3) Information about the process was (is?) being regarded as a state secret, even though there was little that was novel or unique to the process (color separation has been going on for countless years in the printing industry, and I see no use of their "changing wavelengths" claim since pre-existing, off-the-shelf machines are used)
4) Marketing was hyping the process up over a long period of time with nothing practical to show for it, leading to annoyed and disillusioned potential customers.
5) The business organization (territories?) was completely flawed as there would be no protection to buy-ins from outside competitors. No protection from internet sales across territorial boundaries? Refusal to train more than one person per territory was seriously considered a proper solution to prevention of multiple competitors in a territory? To even consider such a plan would work beyond the boardroom tells me a lot about the lack of forethought put into the plan.

Meh... the company (and its technique) may still come to fruition as a viable business, but certainly not in any shape or form previously mentioned.

[Martin Boekers]

If working with putting full color on ceramic and glass intrests you , check out this website;

http://www.enduring-images.com/

It's a kiln fired process, that is permanent light stable!
you use a laser printer with a specialized toner cartridge.

It's a pretty slik process!

The toners not cheap but it is a way to permanatly fuse a color image to ceramic and glass.

Prices have dropped dramatically, but it is still about $15k plus a kiln to get set up.


Marty

[Paul Lee]

I understand the Atomic Art process to be a multi layer process. If the envraving time is now 50 minutes for a 12 x 12 tile. Is that for each color layer? If there are four seperations to get the finished tile then that would be 12.5 minutes per layer. The laser I use won't move that fast even at the lowest dpi.

I can see 50 minutes for each color on a full image tile. Now we are talking about 200 minutes per tile. Just thought I would add another question for the mix of unknowns.