hi Jeffrey, thanks for sharing this video. helps a lot. With my black PLA, i got to mark it with somewhat goldish color with my 30W. settings i used was power 30%, speed 500, frequency 20-30khz.
I’m not sure if anyone mentioned this yet but the opacity of the clear plastics are different especially when comparing acrylic and polycarbonate. You’ll want to check your opacity because they’ll also vary according to manufacturer. Acrylic is a lot better at letting light pass through which is why I’m guessing the laser goes right through it.
On my Friend's co2 we put blue masking tape on top of acrylic and wood, it does 2 things, one keep burn marks from happening, and then it helps with marking the surface. Might be worth a try
High Jeff. Love your videos. I noticed the laser went right through your polycarbonate. We have the lame problem with diode lasers. You can still mark if you color it. I usually use a flat black spray paint as it is easy to remove with paint thinner. We are able to do the same with glass. I have been wanting to up my toys and get a fiber... Your videos are great.
Did the polycarbonate dragons feel rough? Could this be a method to roughen the polycarbonate, to enhance the grip on it? For example if I want to make a skateboard out of polycarbonate. Can I texturize the top of it (to add grip) by engraving something (like hexagons) ?
If the acrylic was extruded then it wont engrave well at all compared to cast acrylic, I have a few epilog co2 lasers and this is somethign that is common knowledge however Im seriously thinking about getting one of these lasers for myself and I really think cast acrylic might be possible to engrave with even with one of these fiber lasers
I found my perfect settings for PLA but when it comes to a RED color PLA those settings doesnt work. I was wondering if it has to do with the laser being red as well... havent found a setting that would work on a red PLA yet... have you?
It’s amazing with the different capabilities of Fiber, co2 and diode lasers. I’m going for a Fiber laser from eBay of 30w soon as I will pro dominantly be marking/engraving metal. Plus a decent co2 laser engraving machine is pretty big compared to a Fiber and even though I have extremely low knowledge in this field, am I correct in saying that fiber lasers are a lot faster....plus of 1000mms engraving speeds is crazy fast
The cheap CO2 lasers on ebay are much slower since the head is driven around on linear rails. A few companies also make fiber lasers in the same style, but this one in the video has a galvo head so it's very fast. CO2 lasers are also available with a galvo head, but that's much less common and not a good option since you're going to mark and engrave metal. One word of caution about buying through ebay: some people have ended up with counterfeit JCZ boards which forces you to use an older version of ezcad and may limit you to using an older operating system. I got lucky with my purchase.
JefferyJ Thanks for your quick reply. I’ve been looking into or should I say researching into Chinese Fiber laser machines from Aliexpress as they APPEAR to be of the same design as those on eBay with as you just mentioned, Galvo heads, variant sizes in lenses and Raycus 30w laser. It’s interesting that you mentioned about differences in internal component boards causing ezcad compatibility issues and I will most certainly look into this prior to purchasing a Fiber laser myself. You really have a great informative channel here and never short of great tutorials. I salute you sir! Really, thank you for your knowledge and experience
Hi Jeffrey, I happen to use the fiber laser marking machine with the plastic bottle cap (which is Polypropylene). It works great with the black bottle cap but eventually it does not work with other colors(blue pink green etc.). Even I set all the settings the same. So I have to lower the Z-axis and increase the power to have some mark but its like a blurred burning mark than a clear mark on the black color. I wannna ask that the color of the object affect the marking or its just some other problem I encountered?
Want a 10 minute video specifically about different colored bottle cap marking? Here you go: ua-cam.com/video/Qa-4CWZsWBQ/v-deo.html I made it for one person a while ago, which is why it's unlisted, but there's no personal info in there. Check it out if you're interested.
Great video as usual Jeff! Have you tried focusing the laser more into the material instead of directly on top? I know with some polycarbonates, you will get bubbling or foaming when marking with a fiber. I'm currently running a test on polycarbonate that has a metallic film on it i.e...sunglass lenses lol. I'm getting very interesting results.
I don't think I've tried marking out of focus on plastics, but interesting idea! Does it produce a very different result from just bumping up the frequency?
Hey Jeffery, great videos thanks for shearing. I’ve just purchased a 50w fibre laser and was wondering do you have a formula to adjust settings from a 30w to a 50w laser as a start point for me to work from to get my own set of settings. Cheers George
I too have been researching EVERYWHERE and can't find anything on ABS Plastic. I build electrical controllers and need to cutout PID panels, POT holes, engrave 0-100% circles for the POT's, engrave many words all over the enclosure. Any help would be greatly appreciated and don't mind expressing my thanks in $$'s 😊
This is probably a dumb question, but... During the Light Mode, where it displays an example of the image on the part before burning, does the laser image really bounce and jump all over the place like that in person or is that just an artifact of the camera shutter speed in the video?
Yes it's basically using a laser pointer to simulate the actual marking that will take place to help with placement. There is an option to slow down the speed of the preview and I have mine set pretty fast (I think 3000 mm/s) and there's another option to just use a rectangular bounding box rather than the prediction. Both can be helpful depending on the situation.
@@jefferyj oh ok, cool, thanks! I do have one more question if you don't mind... I know these lasers typically have a working area of like 150 by 150 mm, so I'm curious how easy or difficult it is to engrave something larger than that by stopping, moving the part, and re aligning it with the Light Mode preview to continue on the remaining section(s), if that makes sense?
@@bluegizmo1983 The working area depends on the lens you have installed (they're swappable). It usually ranges from 50x50 to 300x300. It's not easy to perfectly align something that's marked in multiple steps, assuming it's a connected design and there will be a bit of skew as you approach the edges of your marking field. If alignment isn't critical, it's not a big deal to mark in multiple steps.
I was talking to a fiber laser supplier here in Canada and he informed me the wavelength of the fiber laser makes it unsuitable for marking or cutting clear acrylic. CO2 is the way to go for acrylics.
Thanks for this detailed video--it's almost exactly what I need to know, but I'm still trying to nail down one more question before dropping $3k+ on my own machine. I need to mark legible regulatory and ID information on small polycarbonate enclosures. I'm 99% sure that anything *except* a fiber laser won't work. However, the material is black, or very dark gray. Have you ever tried marking dark/black polycarb with this? I've scoured UA-cam and found some promising videos, but nothing definitively showing the results of a 20W/30W fiber laser on dark polycarb. Usually, it's white or clear polycarb, or if it's black, the video generically identifies it as "plastic," which could be anything. If you don't know the answer but are open to this possibility, I'd be happy to send some sample material your way and pay for a test like what you've done in this video. It's way better than spending a bucket of money on something that might not work. :)
Black is actually one of the better colors to mark. The dye foams when heated by the laser and a mark appears. I've marked some black delrin in a video that you might have seen.
No, I haven't tried that. Did you try reflecting the laser it off another material? I posted that method in another video on acrylic. Not sure if it would work for your material though...
It will engrave and mark, but can really only cut thin materials. Check out Epilog's list of 'laserable materials' for CO2 and Fiber lasers and you'll get a good idea of which is best for each material. In general, f iber isn't great on wood.
It appears that when you are changing materials you may not be adjusting the focus length. These Chinese lasers don't have assisting lasers to help get accurate focal lengths which may be functional but it will be inaccurate on repeatability. Each time a different thickness of part goes on the machine the height will need to be adjusted as well as the deeper your mark/etch gets you lose the focal power. When you were cutting the stainless steel plate, if you were to lower the head down by thousandths of an inch or in this case micrometers of a millimeter the outcome should come out better. Maybe you can invest in a digital height gauge or a powered Z axis. Just a thought. Thanks for the video.
Yes, the focal length was always adjusted, but the video has been edited to remove that kind of thing for brevity. For the most part I use the two red dot lasers to find the focal point, but I do measure parts with calipers on occasion. For the stainless part I was cutting through, I did change the focal length during the cut (that was actually my second attempt that was on camera) but the difference was unfortunately not significant. Someone mentioned that 'wobble' might make a difference but I haven't yet tried it.
Hi sir I m a gunsmith and bought a laser machine from china 30w 5 days ago my question is that I want to copy same to same marking with sizes , depth, and font style or serial numbers from another object on my object . how can i do that ? Please Sir I want help.
You're probably just going to have to build the files you need for each manufacturer. Vectorizing logos, finding the right fonts, and saving the ezd files once you work it out. It might be easier to sort it out in illustrator or corel and then import to ezcad in case you need to make changes.
hi Jeffrey, thanks for sharing this video. helps a lot. With my black PLA, i got to mark it with somewhat goldish color with my 30W. settings i used was power 30%, speed 500, frequency 20-30khz.
Thank you, keep doing!!!
I’m not sure if anyone mentioned this yet but the opacity of the clear plastics are different especially when comparing acrylic and polycarbonate. You’ll want to check your opacity because they’ll also vary according to manufacturer. Acrylic is a lot better at letting light pass through which is why I’m guessing the laser goes right through it.
On my Friend's co2 we put blue masking tape on top of acrylic and wood, it does 2 things, one keep burn marks from happening, and then it helps with marking the surface. Might be worth a try
congratulations!!
Thank you
Very nice information ۔۔ i will try to do this soon ۔
You don't even bother with proper focusing and expect good results. Amazing.
High Jeff. Love your videos. I noticed the laser went right through your polycarbonate. We have the lame problem with diode lasers. You can still mark if you color it. I usually use a flat black spray paint as it is easy to remove with paint thinner. We are able to do the same with glass. I have been wanting to up my toys and get a fiber... Your videos are great.
I haven't tried that on glass...Interesting!
I spray paint my 3d prints and then laser engrave them , then apply spray varnish 3-4 coats.
Did the polycarbonate dragons feel rough? Could this be a method to roughen the polycarbonate, to enhance the grip on it? For example if I want to make a skateboard out of polycarbonate. Can I texturize the top of it (to add grip) by engraving something (like hexagons) ?
If the acrylic was extruded then it wont engrave well at all compared to cast acrylic, I have a few epilog co2 lasers and this is somethign that is common knowledge however Im seriously thinking about getting one of these lasers for myself and I really think cast acrylic might be possible to engrave with even with one of these fiber lasers
hi
nice work
i have 30w fiber laser jpt i want to mark black on white ABS plastic kindly tell me settings
You finally managed to engrave something on the PLA?
I found my perfect settings for PLA but when it comes to a RED color PLA those settings doesnt work. I was wondering if it has to do with the laser being red as well... havent found a setting that would work on a red PLA yet... have you?
What laser machine are you using?
It’s amazing with the different capabilities of Fiber, co2 and diode lasers.
I’m going for a Fiber laser from eBay of 30w soon as I will pro dominantly be marking/engraving metal.
Plus a decent co2 laser engraving machine is pretty big compared to a Fiber and even though I have extremely low knowledge in this field, am I correct in saying that fiber lasers are a lot faster....plus of 1000mms engraving speeds is crazy fast
The cheap CO2 lasers on ebay are much slower since the head is driven around on linear rails. A few companies also make fiber lasers in the same style, but this one in the video has a galvo head so it's very fast. CO2 lasers are also available with a galvo head, but that's much less common and not a good option since you're going to mark and engrave metal. One word of caution about buying through ebay: some people have ended up with counterfeit JCZ boards which forces you to use an older version of ezcad and may limit you to using an older operating system. I got lucky with my purchase.
JefferyJ Thanks for your quick reply.
I’ve been looking into or should I say researching into Chinese Fiber laser machines from Aliexpress as they APPEAR to be of the same design as those on eBay with as you just mentioned, Galvo heads, variant sizes in lenses and Raycus 30w laser.
It’s interesting that you mentioned about differences in internal component boards causing ezcad compatibility issues and I will most certainly look into this prior to purchasing a Fiber laser myself.
You really have a great informative channel here and never short of great tutorials.
I salute you sir!
Really, thank you for your knowledge and experience
Hi Jeffrey, I happen to use the fiber laser marking machine with the plastic bottle cap (which is Polypropylene). It works great with the black bottle cap but eventually it does not work with other colors(blue pink green etc.). Even I set all the settings the same. So I have to lower the Z-axis and increase the power to have some mark but its like a blurred burning mark than a clear mark on the black color. I wannna ask that the color of the object affect the marking or its just some other problem I encountered?
Want a 10 minute video specifically about different colored bottle cap marking? Here you go: ua-cam.com/video/Qa-4CWZsWBQ/v-deo.html I made it for one person a while ago, which is why it's unlisted, but there's no personal info in there. Check it out if you're interested.
@@jefferyj Thanks a lot Jeffrey. This is totally what I want. XD
Great video as usual Jeff! Have you tried focusing the laser more into the material instead of directly on top? I know with some polycarbonates, you will get bubbling or foaming when marking with a fiber. I'm currently running a test on polycarbonate that has a metallic film on it i.e...sunglass lenses lol. I'm getting very interesting results.
I don't think I've tried marking out of focus on plastics, but interesting idea! Does it produce a very different result from just bumping up the frequency?
@@jefferyj From what I've noticed, you get less foaming on the material and its a very interesting look to it. It's fairly clean as well.
Hey Jeffery, great videos thanks for shearing.
I’ve just purchased a 50w fibre laser and was wondering do you have a formula to adjust settings from a 30w to a 50w laser as a start point for me to work from to get my own set of settings. Cheers George
Nothing exact, but someone created a page called fiberlasersettings.org that might be helpful as a starting point.
@@jefferyj ty
Hi, thanks for the amazing video's, I am missing ABS plastic, are you able to engrave that & what are the results on that?
I too have been researching EVERYWHERE and can't find anything on ABS Plastic. I build electrical controllers and need to cutout PID panels, POT holes, engrave 0-100% circles for the POT's, engrave many words all over the enclosure.
Any help would be greatly appreciated and don't mind expressing my thanks in $$'s 😊
Will it mark on color cable ties?
Hi Jeffrey..thanks for the video...do you ever try to laser marking white polypropylene material? I facing issue to laser cut this material. Thanks.
sorry the material is LDPE (polyethylene)
This is probably a dumb question, but... During the Light Mode, where it displays an example of the image on the part before burning, does the laser image really bounce and jump all over the place like that in person or is that just an artifact of the camera shutter speed in the video?
Yes it's basically using a laser pointer to simulate the actual marking that will take place to help with placement. There is an option to slow down the speed of the preview and I have mine set pretty fast (I think 3000 mm/s) and there's another option to just use a rectangular bounding box rather than the prediction. Both can be helpful depending on the situation.
@@jefferyj oh ok, cool, thanks! I do have one more question if you don't mind... I know these lasers typically have a working area of like 150 by 150 mm, so I'm curious how easy or difficult it is to engrave something larger than that by stopping, moving the part, and re aligning it with the Light Mode preview to continue on the remaining section(s), if that makes sense?
@@bluegizmo1983 The working area depends on the lens you have installed (they're swappable). It usually ranges from 50x50 to 300x300. It's not easy to perfectly align something that's marked in multiple steps, assuming it's a connected design and there will be a bit of skew as you approach the edges of your marking field. If alignment isn't critical, it's not a big deal to mark in multiple steps.
@@jefferyj ok that makes sense. Thanks!
have you tried to engrave a white PA6?
I was talking to a fiber laser supplier here in Canada and he informed me the wavelength of the fiber laser makes it unsuitable for marking or cutting clear acrylic. CO2 is the way to go for acrylics.
Thanks for this detailed video--it's almost exactly what I need to know, but I'm still trying to nail down one more question before dropping $3k+ on my own machine. I need to mark legible regulatory and ID information on small polycarbonate enclosures. I'm 99% sure that anything *except* a fiber laser won't work. However, the material is black, or very dark gray. Have you ever tried marking dark/black polycarb with this?
I've scoured UA-cam and found some promising videos, but nothing definitively showing the results of a 20W/30W fiber laser on dark polycarb. Usually, it's white or clear polycarb, or if it's black, the video generically identifies it as "plastic," which could be anything.
If you don't know the answer but are open to this possibility, I'd be happy to send some sample material your way and pay for a test like what you've done in this video. It's way better than spending a bucket of money on something that might not work. :)
Black is actually one of the better colors to mark. The dye foams when heated by the laser and a mark appears. I've marked some black delrin in a video that you might have seen.
@@jefferyj Hi, can you engrave black PETG 3D printed parts ?
Hi Jeff, did you try with cellulose acetate in transparent color?...I try to find a good setting but it s looks like your acrylic...
No, I haven't tried that. Did you try reflecting the laser it off another material? I posted that method in another video on acrylic. Not sure if it would work for your material though...
what is the name of laser are u using?
what f u paint the material b4 markin
does this only engrave or would it cut wood and other materials?
It will engrave and mark, but can really only cut thin materials. Check out Epilog's list of 'laserable materials' for CO2 and Fiber lasers and you'll get a good idea of which is best for each material. In general, f iber isn't great on wood.
What last item Material?
On the clear acrylic use permanent marker on it
Hi Jeff. What brand your fiber laser?
It's a generic ebay laser with a Raycus laser source inside. Check out my first video on my channel for more info on it.
It appears that when you are changing materials you may not be adjusting the focus length. These Chinese lasers don't have assisting lasers to help get accurate focal lengths which may be functional but it will be inaccurate on repeatability. Each time a different thickness of part goes on the machine the height will need to be adjusted as well as the deeper your mark/etch gets you lose the focal power. When you were cutting the stainless steel plate, if you were to lower the head down by thousandths of an inch or in this case micrometers of a millimeter the outcome should come out better. Maybe you can invest in a digital height gauge or a powered Z axis. Just a thought. Thanks for the video.
Yes, the focal length was always adjusted, but the video has been edited to remove that kind of thing for brevity. For the most part I use the two red dot lasers to find the focal point, but I do measure parts with calipers on occasion.
For the stainless part I was cutting through, I did change the focal length during the cut (that was actually my second attempt that was on camera) but the difference was unfortunately not significant. Someone mentioned that 'wobble' might make a difference but I haven't yet tried it.
@@jefferyj I heard you mention delrin, did you have any luck in marking/etching delrin?
@@murrayhill7373 Yes, have a look at this video:
ua-cam.com/video/YzsxXXoA-4k/v-deo.html
thanks for the guiding work, have you tried the white SLS Pa2200 before? i need parameters for this i tried but failed
Why are you trying put black marks on a piece of black PLA and then concluding it doesn't work? Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. How would we know??
Hi Jeff, glass mark?
People have done it, though it usually requires some kind of pre treatment or additional material.
Hi thank you but ı have quesiton how can ı laser print on pom item.We cant with laser ? Please help me brother
Hi sir I m a gunsmith and bought a laser machine from china 30w 5 days ago my question is that I want to copy same to same marking with sizes , depth, and font style or serial numbers from another object on my object . how can i do that ? Please Sir I want help.
You're probably just going to have to build the files you need for each manufacturer. Vectorizing logos, finding the right fonts, and saving the ezd files once you work it out. It might be easier to sort it out in illustrator or corel and then import to ezcad in case you need to make changes.
Thank you Sir
ok i will call you dragon, you can call me nighthawk
Imagine what you can do with a mopa laser
the acronym was not marked because the ideal height was in the tower
Just dont try PVC!