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.

Joe -

Actually, I have had a similar residue on LaserLights (Rowmark, I believe), but I haven't yet tried the eraser on that product. Haven't used it since I bought those erasers! But I will try it just to see what's what.

Thanks again!

Mike -

Thanks much for your help. As you say, I will just have to test it out... as Harvey suggested way back in this thread!

Have a good one!