question on cutting acrylic

[Mike Burroughs]

My laser did a similar thing.. I can cut square edge items just fine, but when i applied 'rounded corners' for some reason this seemed to confuse the laser. I have not seemed to fix the problem...yet. If i come up with any results i will be sure to post.

Mike

[Gary Hair]

and of course speeds of all lasers are not the same so 3% speed on a ULS may not be the same on an Epilog or LaserPro or whatever.

This is one of my pet peeves... If we would get used to talking about speed and watts ACUALLY used it would be a lot easier to convert, and compare, from machine to machine.

For example: I have a 30W, 80IPS (raster) 40IPS (vector), Pinnacle ZX. If I use 10% S and 100% P for a vector cut then I should tell you I am using 4IPS and 30 watts. If I use 40%S and 80%P for raster then I should tell you I am using 32IPS and 24 watts. These numbers can be equated very easily to another machine. If you have a 45 watt, 42 ips machine then all you have to do is figure out what % of P and S give you the numbers I post - SIMPLE!

I realize that the power numbers are rarely, if ever, what they are "supposed" to be but at least this gives you a smaller target to hit.

If everyone put their speed/power settings in their signature then this would be a bit easier, but it would be easiest if you would just post the P and S actually used.

Gary

[Dave Jones]

It goes deeper than that and just calculating a speed based on what your machine's theoretical speed is, times the percentage, won't translate either to another brand. For example on mine 50% speed on vector is nowhere near 1/2 the physical speed of the 100% setting. They are very close to the same thing. At least when drawing a circle.

[sunil jain]

Today i got jobwork to cut letters on 10mm milky acrylic. I work on spirit 25 watt. I used same p/s setting that i used to cut cast acrylic ie speed .5 and power 100. The problem was that the lower side of letters stucked. but this never happened on cutting letters on cast acrylic.
Firstly i thought it was an alignment problem i checked for it, and it was ok. then again i tried on cast acrylic, again cutting was ok. I adjusted ppi and other parameter to solve the problem.
The problem was only on white milky acrylic. laterly i excercised to find the optimum speed/power setting, it worked out to be .9/95. but the problem of stucking was still there.
Any one help me to cut white milky acrylic letters cleanly.

[Frank Corker]

Sunil, try lifting the workpiece off the cutting bed using a couple of coins, then try setting the focus point midway through the thickness of the workpiece. You should be pleasantly suprised, your laser will cut through the first couple of millimetres like butter even though it's below focus and the underneath will be MUCH smoother.