Laser Engraving Skin

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Laser Engraving Skin

Postby bdring » Mon Sep 05, 2011 9:22 pm

The Alupanel skin material engraves very well. The lines are so perfect, you need to set the step over below your kerf or you just get light blue, from the remaining blue between the lines. I did this at 0.06mm step over.

engr_skin_md.JPG


This was done with an even smaller step over. Obviously blue is not the best color for this, but it does not look bad. The material is less than $2 per square foot.

This is an untouched file off the Internet. No contrast or brightness adjustments. I only flipped the b/w. I left my hand in the frame for a size reference.

ja.jpg
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Re: Laser Engraving Skin

Postby metalman » Tue Sep 06, 2011 12:57 am

Looks good! What control and driver setup did you use?
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The process

Postby bdring » Tue Sep 06, 2011 1:15 am

Everything was done in Thunderlaser PHCad with the DSP controller

Here was the process.

  • Found Image (1410 x 975)
  • Imported into PHCad
  • Inverted the image because the laser was going to make things lighter
  • Dithered the image with a 0.25mm dot size
  • Scaled the image to what I wanted
  • Set engrave parameters to 400mm/s, 60% power, 0.04mm step over
  • Engraved
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Re: Laser Engraving Skin

Postby DasGrinch » Tue Sep 06, 2011 1:32 am

Have you tried on the brushed metal stuff?
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Re: Laser Engraving Skin

Postby BenJackson » Tue Sep 06, 2011 2:07 am

You should scale before dithering.
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Re: Laser Engraving Skin

Postby twehr » Tue Sep 06, 2011 2:09 am

Where do you buy your Alupanel?
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Re: Laser Engraving Skin

Postby bdring » Tue Sep 06, 2011 2:53 am

The black and gold both engrave fine. The black actually looks fantastic. The bright aluminum really shines. The gold has good detail, but the contrast is not as good. I would think their plain black could do some amazing images.

They both leave a little "ash" afterward that needs to be wiped off. I just did it with my t shirt here and looking at the picture, could have done a better job. The dime is for size and color reference.

test_blk.PNG

test_gold.PNG


Where do you buy your Alupanel?


I buy the material from Midwest Neon in Chicago. They deliver on their own truck for free in the area. I can send a few scraps if you want to play with it.
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Re: Laser Engraving Skin

Postby DasGrinch » Tue Sep 06, 2011 3:15 am

That does look awesome.
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Re: Laser Engraving Skin

Postby lasersafe1 » Tue Sep 06, 2011 6:23 pm

Looks great. I was also impressed with anodized aluminum, then my favorite medium became pure black granite. There is, however, a huge quality difference between black granite and pure black granite. In the pure black the grains are very small.

FYI, at Thorlabs you can buy a whole roll of black anodized aluminum foil. You have to be very careful when pulling it off the roll not to kink it, but it will have a similar result under the laser. You could then frame it under glass or leave it exposed. One cool "artistic" feature may be to engrave it flat and then crinkle (krinkle?) it up, then try to flatten it again. Or you may want to throw it in the recycle bin... who knows. Either way, it is a good "practice" material.
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Re: Laser Engraving Skin

Postby twehr » Tue Sep 06, 2011 6:46 pm

lasersafe1 wrote:Looks great. I was also impressed with anodized aluminum, then my favorite medium became pure black granite. There is, however, a huge quality difference between black granite and pure black granite. In the pure black the grains are very small.

FYI, at Thorlabs you can buy a whole roll of black anodized aluminum foil. You have to be very careful when pulling it off the roll not to kink it, but it will have a similar result under the laser. You could then frame it under glass or leave it exposed. One cool "artistic" feature may be to engrave it flat and then crinkle (krinkle?) it up, then try to flatten it again. Or you may want to throw it in the recycle bin... who knows. Either way, it is a good "practice" material.


I must not be looking correctly, as I can't find it at Thorlabs.
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