Hi everyone!

I've been lurking around reading messages off and on for the last year or so. Everyone is so helpful with issues/questions, that I thought I'd try asking one for myself.

I've got what I hope is a fairly easy question to answer. I recently purchased a Trotec laser engraver and have stumbled on a problem that I do not know how to resolve. I hope someone here can help!

My issue is with laser engraving/cutting labels for trophies. I use the laser to cut them out after the text engraves. I use Versaflex (sp?) (Marco/Discount Trophy product like Flexibrass knockoff) in black with gold underneath. On many of the labels but not necessarily all in a given run, I end up with a residue at the bottom of the label. See my rather pitiful diagram below with the x's denoting where the residue ends up.

+--------------cut line----------------------+
! !
! Label text !
! !
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
+--------------cut line----------------------+

I'm assuming this should NOT be the case as it's a pain in the you-know-where to remove when I can get it off!

Unfortunately, I don't remember the power, velocity, etc. settings I use for the cut. Air-assist is on, if that matters. The Trotec laser comes with software that includes settings for use with Flexibrass, so I have defaulted to those settings. If this info is necessary, let me know and I'll provide it in a subsequent message.

The residue does not appear to happen on the silver or gold versaflex... just the black.

Also, if you know of an easy way to remove the residue, I'd love to hear it. I've tried Goof-off and Goop-off and another couple of kinds of adhesive remover, but none work especially well.

Any ideas? I'd appreciate it!

Thanks in advance!

It could be two different things that may be causing that. Smoke residue or heat aberrations in the surface.

One solution may be to use the minimum power that will cut through the material.

Make some 1/2" horizontal lines, each at a different power/speed along the left edge of the layout. Put in the material a slight bit to the right of the left edge, then vector it. Use the lowest power that cuts through the piece.

Philadelphia, PA (Really Bensalem)

When you finally understand it completely... it changes.

I use denatured alcohol to remove smoke residue from most substrates - wood, plastic, etc. but never for acrylic!

Don't EVER clean Rowmark with alcohol and stack them though... I have heard that they will stick together and ruin an entire batch of plaque plates - a friend told me that anyway... :/

Gary

What are your setting P, V, HZ for the vector cut?

and your laser size (watts)?

Thanks for everyone's reply. I will try the denatured alcohol and see what happens. I'd like to not have to clean the plates at all if possible.

I have updated my profile (thought I had already done that!).

My settings are P=20, V=7, Hz=10000 for the cut.

I have a Trotec Speedy 100, 45 watt.

Any ideas on the settings I might try?

Thanks in advance for everyone's help!

Mike -

Thanks for the info! Don't know Paul. Would love to meet him. Do you know his company name?

So, you don't use the settings that come by default for the Flexibrass? I will try the settings you specified and see how it works.

Thanks!

Lisa:

The name of Paul's business is Whispered Images. He is quite an artist.

I do not use all the Trotec settings as each machine varies a little. I even find myself tweaking these from time to time depending on color. Red and Black seem to be harder to engrave than gold and silver.

On very thin material engraving too deeply can cause the material to become brittle.

Another thing to watch for is the cap thickness. It takes more power to engrave .003" than .001".

Thanks, Mike!

Have a great day!

Lisa
The Awards Shop

Top Secret Cleaning Tool for Plastic - "Mr. Clean Magic Eraser"

Works very well on lots of things but is super on plastic
Key issue is to keep the power as low as possible and still get you cut.
Everyone else has said that but I just wanted to reiterate it.

Mike Null is the EE forum Trotec Wizard.

Mark

When you're in Job Control select "plate" from the menu. In that window are several options; one of which is start position. Select bottom.

I guess I should confess I've never felt the need to use it.

Joe -

Thanks for your feedback.

I saw that information (about the Mr. Clean eraser) from some other posts and ran out and bought some. Unfortunately, it scratches this engrave stock. So, that's out. <sigh>

However, I did try it on other things and it worked quite well. Just not these trophy plates!

Thanks!

Mike -

Not sure I understand this, but when I used the settings you use, my results were worse than normal! Now I get the residue at the bottom of the plate and at the top of many of the letters.

So, I tried using my same settings and just downing the power by 5 (to 15) and unfortunately, that didn't help. I'll try it with less power when I'm not so busy, but in the meantime, I'll buy the denatured alcohol and give that a shot.

I do have air assist on... but my vacuum is turned down fairly low. I'll turn it way up and see if that matters.

BTW, I do get the dust residue as well. That just wipes off like powder. Then you see the other residue.

Lisa:

Sorry, I should have been paying more attention. While our machines are the same wattage they operate at different speeds.

One of these days we'll all get on the same page as far as adjusting the power settings and speed setting to actual watts and inches per second.

For example on our machines if we're at 80% power that would be 36 watts, if you know the raster speed of your machine and it's 100 inches per second, at 50% speed you'd be at 50 inches per second. Therefore if we related just actual wattage and actual speed in IPS we could relate better to the settings offered here.

The real answer will lie in the test results you personally find to work best.