Examples of materials cutting
Paper/card
First paper & card cuts (29/05/09). Paper and card are easily cut right through with the laser - I don't have a note of the settings, but something like 20% power, 3cm/s speed is about right.
The edge has a nice blackened finish.
The design is from a gold-covered storage jar from Mycenae in the archeological museum in Athens ;-)
Wood
First wood raster engrave (29/05/09). This was raster engraved on a piece of MDF, about 50% power. It's really deep (almost 1mm!) and is very sharp - the photo doesn't do it justice. Note the streaking from the fumes produced - the extraction was pulling fumes to the top of the L, hence the streaks.
Acrylic
First acrylic cut and engrave (29/05/09). Couldn't wait to try acrylic! I initially ran a design at low power in vector mode to see the effect. This resulted in a lovely round-bottomed groove about 0.5mm deep. I'm amazed by what the laser beam does to the acrylic - it seems to instantly vapourise the material, leaving hardly any burr.
Next, I tried some raster engraving, using the same settings as for the wood above. Beautiful results! Again, there was a problem with fumes being drawn across the surface. The background has a nice rough texture - not smooth, but not excessively rough either. Just enough texture to be interesting!
And finally, cutting right through 2mm acrylic! Again around 50% power. It probably cut it in one pass, but I gave it two just to be on the safe side.
Check out the edge quality - almost perfectly straight!
Acrylic is perfect for laser cutting. I have the feeling that with a gas assist, it should be possible to cut even thicker material - I tried 3mm but I needed several passes, and the plastic eventually melted back together again. An air jet would help blow this out and keep the cut clean.
New cuts using the air assist (12/06/09). The air assist has been a huge success. I can now cut through 1/4" acrylic using about four passes, and letting it cool between times! Even at that thickness, the cut is still pretty damn straight with a good edge.
3mm thick is a dawdle - two passes at about 80% power goes right through. I did a nice fluorescent letter L!
