WOW!! Learning curves

[Roy Sanders]

I just learned that cutting acrylic is not very straight forward. I discovered my 40W will not cut 1/4 acrylic on first cut. I attempted 3 mm/sec and full power, and I repeated the cut 6 times. .IMG_1223[2].jpg



See how there are so many cut marks. Seems that the beam move a bit each time around. Any ideas? Is this a focus length issue? Perhaps I need to spend more time turning pens and less attempting cutting acrylic... But I want to make pen levelers that go on my rotator devise. The rotator has a sizable gap between the two pins. The smaller pens almost go between them.

so I thought, make a leveler. Not so easy.

Thanks

Roy

[Bert Kemp]

Looking at the picture its hard to tell if the beam has mover or its a result of melting and the melting back into itself on a new pass and repeating with each pass. Can you make levelers from wood?

[Gary Hair]

I have never seen acrylic burn like that, are you sure it's acrylic? Looks more like polycarbonate or pretty much anything besides acrylic. I guess if you were really out of focus then acrylic may burn like that, but can't see why otherwise. Plus, a 40 watt laser is more than powerful enough to cut 1/4" acrylic in one pass, I do it all the time with 30 watts.

[Rich Harman]

Gary said my thoughts exactly.

[Ivan Pavletic]

To me it also looks nothing like acrylic
Once I was tricked to cut acrylic but they brought something that is not quite like that. I had to cut it with 4 times slower then cutting acrylic and I had to do 3 passes. And it burned.
My advice is to make pen levelers out of thin mdf or something like that. You can cut it faster and is cheaper

[John Frazee]

I'm with most others here. It really doesn't look like acrylic. Be very careful if you are not sure what you are trying to laser.

[Keith Outten]

I got the same results when I tried to vector cut quarter inch thick Lexan with my 35 watt laser years ago.

[Dave Sheldrake]

I'm with the guys on this...that looks like Lexan

[Roy Sanders]

Hello and thank you for your replies. I went back into the shop, and sure enough, it is lexan. I will need to be more careful when ordering stuff. Then when I receive it making certain it is what I thought i ordered. Like the thread title indicates, 'WOW!! Learning Curves'

Yes I can make my levelers from High Density MDF, I even have some.

Until the next skwew up, thank you and happy lasering.

[Junior hall]

Have a question on this topic. SO only use acrylic only nothing but acrylic no lexan what about plexi glass i know not to use polycarbonate I looked up on Home depot and lowes and have found a lot of lexan and polycarbonate but know not to use either one
thanks

[Scott Shepherd]

Plexiglas is a brand name. Plexiglas comes in many different types. Lexan is a brand name as well. Think Polycarbonate or acrylic. Poly- not so good, Acrylic- good. Doesn't matter what the brand name is.

[Keith Colson]

You may need polycarb or abs when you want a plastic that is not brittle. I cut both pretty good on my 60 watt. If acrylic will do the job I prefer to use it.

[Rich Harman]

You may need polycarb or abs when you want a plastic that is not brittle. I cut both pretty good on my 60 watt. If acrylic will do the job I prefer to use it.

Speaking of brittle, there are different types of acrylic. Extruded is the cheap stuff you get at the big box stores, it is brittle and does not engrave well. Cast acrylic is much stronger and engraves very nicely. You can even get some high impact acrylic that you can nearly bend back upon itself before it breaks.

[Junior hall]

ThANKs Scott Shepherd i just seen that as it is just a brand name and i think ill just stick with the acrylic as i seen what polycarbonate looks like if and when i ever do cutting of this. I think ill just stick with the acrylic for engraving or could i use the polycarbonate for engraving also

Also thanks keith Colson thanks so much

[Dave Sheldrake]

could i use the polycarbonate for engraving also

Polycarb engraves like Play-Doh on a CO2 laser