Etching Powdercoated Stainless cups

[Kaci Danek]

I am having issues with etching Powdercoated cups. It's not coming clean with the settings I am using. The practice pieces I used worked well with 18 power, 100speed and 800 DPI, but the actual cups are not working right! Suggestions or help please?!?! �� I have a 100W CamFive

[Mike Null]

I think you need to increase your power and decrease your speed. It is not unusual to run two passes on powder coated items. Be sure to use a good cleaner like Zep or an orange cleaner to remove residue. There is always residue to be cleaned.

http://www.homedepot.com/p/ZEP-32-oz...0532/202671716

[Kaci Danek]

Thanks Mike. I have tested about 20 different times and still haven't found the right combo. At a lower DPI, high power(70), it's shiny but text not clean/crisp. At a higher Dpi of 800, it is a darker/not shiny, almost as if it's not taking it all off.

[Mike Null]

Have you tried cleaning the residue? I find that it is always necessary.

[Kaci Danek]

I have tried Goo Gone, but it was the automotive kind. Wonder if it's different. Have tried denatured alcohol

[Kev Williams]

I've been engraving powdercoated Hydroflasks for a couple of years now.

First of all, goo gets left behind after the first pass, period. I haven't found a 'reasonable' way around this. You WILL have to run at least ONE second cleanup pass, and sometimes a third. I've tried circumventing this issue by going very slow and upping the lines per inch to 1000. Sometimes I'll get a good burn on the first try, usually not. But the time it takes one pass at this rate is more than two 500 LPI passes at a more reasonable speed.

Certain colors engrave better. As to Hydroflasks, black and blue seem to be the easiest. Red isn't bad. White, you'll just have to settle for a consistent gray. Orange and purple are tough. And then there's the batches where it seems they coated them 4 or 5 times as it's nearly 1/32" thick. 3 passes minimum on those.

This is all with my 40 watt Synrad LS900. 80 or more watts may make 2nd passes better, but I'd still wager clean one-pass runs are only going to happen occasionally...

If your rotary is a chuck-style, subsequent runs should be no problem. But a hotdog turner rotary, I don't know how reliable they are as to repeatability, but if they're not, it would be risky with someone elses parts.

As to cleanup, DNA, but usually I don't need to.

[Mike Null]

On my most recent job I was able to run just one pass at my regular powder coat settings. Then I cleaned it with a concentrated citrus cleaner. I do not use DNA as I haven't had any luck on the pc with it.

powder coat.jpg

[Greg W Watson]

I use one pass most times and then goo gone with magic eraser and I never have any issues. For small areas I use a qtip and goo gone and still loosk fine