Project: Switching Beds for a Better Cut

Dilan Tuff-Overes
August 9, 2018

We laser lots of wood and acrylic... like seriously, it's hundreds if not thousands of sheets per year. This volume of throughput tends to cause the lasers to build up a lot of gunk and debris that needs to be cleaned on a regular basis. Besides being safer, it reduces the "flash" marks which are little black marks on the bottom of the material where the laser has burned through the material and reflected off the support table back to the underside of what was being cut.

Selecting the best surface used to support your lasered material comes down to a few options to which you need to ask:

  1. Is my project super heavy, or do I not care about table damage, scorching and just want a flat worksurface surface? (Use a flat metal tabletop)
  2. Are my parts small or risk being lost after being cut? (Use honeycomb)
  3. Do I want to minimize flash marks on my part? (Use slat)
  4. Am I doing the same thing over and over again and want best performance? (Use custom pin-table)

We've used all four methods at Solarbotics (five, if you include the rotary attachment for engraving ...pop bottles), with the honeycomb being the often used solution, but after our last laser cleanup, we've revisited the slat system.

Our latest designs are larger and better tabbed so they stay together. The slat system is ideal for these jobs, with its better managing of debris build-up, and vastly reduced flashing. Less support material below the cut means there's less to get in the way. For comparison, this is what a traditional honeycomb table looks like after a few months of cutting MDF (ug!). Look at that old and crufty thing... and the honeycomb too.

Now take a look at our new cleaned and re-slatted table! It's almost too clean...

As nice as it is, this bed of slats has no indexable edge for us to register our material against. Finding a common origin point on the bed crucial in production, so we used the laser to create our own registration edge!

Using the laser to laser parts for the laser... for better lasering...

Here are the results:

With this in place, we're ready for even higher quality laser cutting.

MORE POSTS

April 22, 2014
Solarbotics at Calgary Entertainment Exp...

Yes! We are quite busy preparing to the above said Entertainment Expo, that is going to take place on April 24-27 2014. Come by our booth(s), which are # 302 and 402, we are going to have lots of new exciting demos to show off.               A few preview […]

October 16, 2012
New Product Friday: Cables, Adapters, Ju...

Well, I'm officially out of words, and again reverting to non-verbal expression.  I already tried to interpretively dance the new product post before. That leaves me completely out of options here. So how about I sleep interpretively? Or breathe... Now, that's just plain weird. Better I sleepwalk then: 4-conductor, 20AWG ribbon cable (Blue, Green, Yellow, […]

September 4, 2001
BIOBugs Update

News from Mr. Tilden: The official unveiling of Hasbro/Wowwee BIOBugs will be September 14, with a huge unleasing of 100 of these critters into the desert of White Sands, New Mexico. Additionally, Mark himself is slated to be on the Rosie O'Donnell Show sometimes on the week of September 17. This will coincide with the […]

April 10, 2013
Wednesday Cool Links: Dragon Fly, Prince...

Weeee, its Wednesday again. And that means time to stare at internet more! While in other parts of the world (or so we are told) things are growing, springing and budding, here we are, with overcast greyness and last year's stuff (grass - as a best case scenario) poking from underneath the dirty snow. So […]

1 17 18 19 20 21 253
Solarbotics Ltd Logo
Solarbotics has been operating for more than 25 years, bringing electronics know-how and supplies to both the electronics professional and hobbyist. We'll be happy to help you too!

Solarbotics, Ltd. is not responsible for misprints or errors on product prices or information. For more information, please see our Terms and Conditions.

Warning: This product contains chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm.
Please visit www.P65Warnings.ca.gov for more information. This item was manufactured prior to August 31, 2018.

cart