ABS Plastic

[Dave Chase]

Anyone cut ABS plastic about 1/8" thick? How does it cut?

[Doug Griffith]

it stinks and melts. Does not give a good finish.

[Joe Pelonio]

And, 1/4 also cuts, but stinks and is rough and charred. The 1/16 does a lot better. If you use black it's not as noticeable as white.

[Margaret Turco]

How about LDPE? It has such a low melting point that it kind of glues itself back together after it's cut and I haven't figured out the solution. Any ideas?

[Dan Hintz]

Margaret, are you using air? If it's melted, a high-pressure blast of air should keep the seam cleared of molten material. You'll have to find a balance between too high of pressure (cooling the material down) and too low (not blowing the material out of the seam).

[Martin Reynolds]

Weird - I am very happy with my ABS cutting. I have had good edges on black and white up to .090 (no charring on the white) and good results with 1/4" black. Cuts a bit slower than acrylic. I use air assist.

[Margaret Turco]

OK, we have a 120 watt ULS X-660. I think we need to set the power down to maybe 20% and increase the air to 50 psi or so. Not sure what to do with the ppi, I'll have to experiment. I almost always use the air assist but not at very high psi. This is .062" thick and we are trying to cut prototype parts to make sure the configuration is correct for our customer before tooling up for larger production runs. I've tried to cut this material before with little success, but the customer is the boss!

[Marc Myer]

Martin,
Can you provide some details about your methods and the system you are using?
We would all love to be able to cut ABS well! I have some 1/8" I have tried twenty different ways and was nearly ready to give up on.

[Joe Pelonio]

How about LDPE? It has such a low melting point that it kind of glues itself back together after it's cut and I haven't figured out the solution. Any ideas?

Try making a second pass at a much faster speed/lower power.

[Richard Rumancik]

Some of the Rowmark products have an ABS core and can be laser cut e.g. LaserMax Metals. But generally ABS is not as good as acrylic for use as a core material as it does not laser so well.

I have cut regular 1/8" black ABS with a 30 watt laser. It cuts okay; the edge is rather rough with striations from the lasering. I have not noticed loose carbon deposits (char). I mask the backside or else it will have a lot of smoke staining (even on the black). It does generate a pronounced ridge on the top surface so often this needs to be manually deburred. As noted before, the worst part is the smell. The rubber component in ABS (butadadiene) will make the shop smell like burning tires even with a good exhaust system.

[Martin Reynolds]

I have a Laserpro Explorer II 30W. I cut ABS at about the same speed as acrylic. I do use air assist. The material comes from TAP and has that giveaway hair cell finish on one side.

[Rodne Gold]

We also cut a lot of ABS on our Explorers and Spirits , all 30w.
The secret is lots of air assist and VERY low freq or PPI - like 100 or 150. This perforates the ABS and stops the heat affected melty zone. Use a deburring tool or scraper to clean edges if your customer is uber fussy , but the edges we get are normally ok.

[Jim Reinhard]

Has anyone tryed raster a pocket in 1/4 abs lik 3/16 deep? I need to do a 1/2" x1" pocket 3/16 deep

[Dan Hintz]

That's a job better done by CNC...

[Jim Reinhard]

Yes but what if you dont hav a cnc?