That is really nice looking David. Inexpensive and has a nice presence. Great job. Was that 1/4 inch Acrylic? Or thicker?

Bob

Good stuff. And I suppose if they want to get a little fancier you could do some color fills.

Seems like such a simple idea, why couldn't I have thought of that? Sheer genius!

Thanks,

Harvey,

My only problem with this process was the amount of expansion that took place when vector cutting the acrylic. It made it difficult to get the rastered image to line up with the vector cuts. Do you or anyone else have any advice to help minimize the shift?

I think I may just have to factor this shift into my designs.

Brett,

That is what I did. I rastered the whole sheet of acrylic, then I vector cut it. As it vector cuts, the acrylic expands, which shifts some of the rastered images before it begins to cut them out. In some cases, the rastered image shifted up and over more than 1/16".

David,

The base is a Q-Snap base from Plastic-Plus Awards.

Very nice work!

I am friends with a Sam Spade here in Michigan.

I work with sheets 18" x 24"

I remove the top paper, raster the image. Then I do the second sheet of that image. [I usually do a few sheets at a time, not necessarily the same.]

While the second is engraving, I put paper transfer tape on the first. By the time it goes back in it has cooled.

I do not have air assist like you do so it heats up a bit more on the vector but I never seem to have that problem. The expansion I get is more like .010+- across the sheet. That is enough to make a second pass of vector impossible, but not affect the image centering much.

Of you line up the sheet in the Upper Left corner, (which I think you do), how was the alignment in the upper left corner? Even with a 1/16 expansion in the lower right it should be virtually perfect in the upper left. If not it was either a shift in the placement of the piece or an interface problem between raster and vector in your setup. [Does the system shimmy and shake during engraving? Maybe a shift in the piece there.]

If the upper left was good, first vector the pieces. Then remove the protective paper and insert it into the sheet in the upper left hole, using that cutout sheet as the mounting jig. Then raster the image. It should be perfect.

Philadelphia, PA (Really Bensalem)

Harvey's Tips Page When you finally understand it completely... it changes.

Very nice David.
What type of power and speed did you use for a 30 watt?
Where do you get your arcylic?

Joe,

Thank You!

I purchase my acrylic from a local distributor name Regal Plastics. They have locations throughout the midwest. I bought a 4'x8' sheet of 1/4" cast acrylic and had them cut it into sizes that would fit into my laser and would also provide the most yield. I drove down to Kansas City and picked it up.

A bonus to this story was that when I was pulling out of Regal's parking lot, I noticed a warehouse that said T-shirt printing. I walked into their back loading dock door and ran into the owner of the business. Much to my pleasure, they did mostly wholesale printing, from basic one-color to full color. He showed me their 16-color press and some of their work. They do some pretty complex stuff and have been in business for 30 years. Needless to say, I will be using them for my promotional products business.

Back to the subject. I used settings of 4% speed and 100% power.

Hi Dave,

If your problem is innacuracy in the cut because of growth as you are cutting. You could create the outline where you plan on cutting the piece. Cut the piece out. Trace the edge, and fit the original image to the new out of original spec size that you end up with.

Use a set of location pins taped down to register the cut piece in the same location on the laser bed piece after piece, and run the image on the pre-cut pieces. If there is any error generated in the cut. You will have had the oportunity to adjust for it when setting up the separate imaging function.

Not having a laser, I am just theorizing as to what is going on, but it's clear in my head :) I am basicly just applying what we have to do when screen printing for registratration of odd shaped pieces. Your just imaging with a laser instead of a screen. We don't care if the shape we are printing on is exactly to tolerance, as long as we can center the image that we are laying down and and make it look nice. Seperate the cut from the imaging process, and I think you will be home free.

Brian G.