Nice. Thanks for the tips. I was wondering how to get a clean engraver on white wood. Was thinking about sanding after engraving. This is much easier to do
Thanks, yeh you could definitely do that but you can also use the masking tape method it works a charm 👌🏽 when engraving the less air the better you only need a small amount to protect the Lense. Thanks for watching Cheers, Matt
Hey mate, yeh there arnt any good places iv found Bunnings is where I get my 3mm ply and mdf from they say to use laser ply but the stuff from Bunnings seems to work well if you can find straight/flat pieces 😂🤣
Hi from what I can tell you shouldn’t use air assist while engraving as it pushes the fumes/smoke back onto your material you do however need to have some air comming out the nozzle to protect the lense but only minimal
If you didn’t use air assist during the engrave you probably wouldn’t need the tape at all. On my diode laser I never use air assistance except to cut.
MDF is an engineered wood with a plastic binder. It is one of the worst materials for producing copious brown tarry fumes. Masking tape is s sticky plaster to solve a problem that need not exist. Anything I suggest from here is not intended as critcism because I have the T shirt and my similar mistakes are on video also.. First you must NOT use air assist when engraving . This is not cutting because there is nowhere for the fumes to go except upwards as you can clearly see from your video These fumes are very tar laden (like steam is water laden). You are blowing those micro droplets of tar back to the surface of your work where they do a great job of painting things sticky brown. Not only is it contaminating the surronding area but your engraving is being coated also. For engraving you ideally need zero air assist BUT that puts your lens at risk of contamination so you need an intelligent air assist kit ( see www.cloudraylaser.com/products/ultimate-air-assist-set?_pos=1&_psq=ultimate&_ss=e&_v=1.0 look in the description to see a video) or as a quick temporary fix, an in-line flow control like this for 6mm tube to reduce your engraving air flow to just a whisper. Trust me the results are remakable without masking.. There are other thinbgs you shoud do as well but I will leave you to watch theair assist video I reference below. www.ebay.co.uk/itm/175129091789?hash=item28c681decd:g:eq0AAOSwL29h8QCE&amdata=enc%3AAQAHAAAAoLUCK%2Fvd6ARDezROqDi1K9U3L4Bqv5FaKU3sW2jwucM%2FXDaGLN8IT4j9fGpbQRSTy%2B2gXgw2YAVZtHylUQ42X%2BDTqxjabveBTu4Qi2IiD5148wHgEAo%2Fk0m%2F7g5iYTqfQalZQ%2FbCGHJgNkDTnSW0%2Fx1RdLPipi6Yq0o5KVFvdc1iz8fRRzA87Whmqt6PJq7rK9v9BvZr6uI%2FuC0UjlvfTcE%3D%7Ctkp%3ABk9SR_Kh7YSPYQ I note 2 things from your screen. It is backwards to your engraving. Press the ZU button to acces a menu that allows you to set your screen origin to the correct orientation. You are only using 40% power for cutting. The best, cleanest and fastest cuts (without damaging your tube ) should normally be done with typically 75% to 80% (max and min) power and FULL air assist. For anyone dropping into this video I recommend you watch the real truth and science about air assist here because there are so many misunderstandings, myths and blatent untruths about this subject czcams.com/video/79VZjMdfBmI/video.html Also there is a lot more to be learnt quickly about all aspects of laser technology here. laseruser.com/the-concise-rdworks-learning-lab-menu/ Have great fun with your onward journey learning about this fascinating technology. Discovery is very satisfying experience as you found with masking masking. However, always look backwards when you discover a fix and try to logically understand the reason you implemented the fix. Watch a few Trotec videos to see the so called experts teaching you how to apply sticky plasters. (masking being one of them).
@SarbarMultimedia Hi Russ, first off thanks for checking out my video iv watched many many hours of yours!! Your a very knowledgeable man when it comes to these machines your in depth videos are amazing and I’d advise anyone and everyone who is interested in C02 lasers to check them out!! 👍🏽 Secondly I do have the cloud ray ultimate air assist installed on my machine the same one you designed after reading your comment I realised I had the needle valve unscrewed a bit too much on the solenoid allowing too much air to pass through while engraving!! Thanks for the tip with the screen iv just not been too worried about the orientation of the preview and as for the power are you saying it’s best to run at 80% and at a quicker speed even on thin materials? Last of all In no way do I think I’m an expert or fit to offer advice I’m just learning as I go and enjoy posting up some vids along the way 😀 Cheers Matt
Didn't expect to see you here. I watch a lot of your videos. I've been thinking (in the back of my head) that a vacuum nozzle assist (in addition to the normal venting) to the workpiece would be a better solution than the blowing air assist as it would take the tar away from the surface so none of it would settle and also keep the lens clean etc.
@@mrfoameruk Thanks for looking over my shoulder. My videos are all about ME exploring the edges of this tecnology that others take for granted. This is pure self-education to keep my two remaining elderly grey cells exercised. If others can benefit from my selfish enjoyment then that's a bonus I never planned on. I rarely comment on other's videos but occasionally I encounter someone who is perpetuating a myth and I take the time , not as criticism of the video but to try and pass on facts to other who may be attractd to the video title. Back to your dream of using vacuum as a cure-all. Sadly I have more than 3 tattered T shirts on that subject. Yes, itsseems obvious that sucking the fumes away will fix the brown residue problem.. Without wasting to many words. A 60mm diameter hood around the nozzle, a piece of 3/4" flexi plastic conduit and a vacuum cleaner was a 3/10. A 3/4" snake whipping back and forth at 200mm/s was a mechnical disater waiting to happen....and it did. However I did learn that 1) the hood had to be close to the work (about 3mm) 2) The hood masked visibility of the nozzle 3) Drawing the fumes awy with no air assist was not preventing the lens from being "smoked" 4) Any air assist to solve 3) was undermining the vacuum efficiency 5) A vacuum cleaner running the whole time?????? I then rethought the problem to utilise compressed air to induce upward air flow around the nozzle. There is a property of fluids and gases called the Coander effect and this has been exploited with devices called air amplifiers. Here is an example of such a device uk.rs-online.com/web/p/air-amplifiers/7606087 Expensive and not suitable in standard form, I designed my own variation. It was great fun for me to design and build but functionality I rated as 2/10 MK3 was again using compressed air (all small bore piping) to try and induce a suction with high pressure tangential air flow air to creaing a vortex..0/10 sum that up. So as you can see its been great fun failing. As a young engineering designer one of my elderly mentors preached a list of simple mantras to me FIRST. You MUST understand a problem FULLY before attemptiing a solution. Complete understanding is 50% of the solution. SECOND If your design concept required solving more and more problems at each stage, STOP.. The correct concept reduces rather than creates problems.. There are many more that are not relevant here. I was so fascinated by the smokey chase that I completely ignored those wise principles. I eventually decoded the tarry problem by fully understanding the physics and mechanism by which the fumes were produced and the manner in which they behaved. That allowed me to optimise stategies for cutting and engraving that turned out to be diametrically opposite for each process but required no special equipment.....just understanding. I have tried to summerize and demonstrate those principles in this video czcams.com/video/79VZjMdfBmI/video.html Best wishes Russ
Inspiring! Think I’ll do something similar with a diode laser! Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for watching 👍🏽
Nice. Thanks for the tips. I was wondering how to get a clean engraver on white wood. Was thinking about sanding after engraving. This is much easier to do
Thanks, yeh you could definitely do that but you can also use the masking tape method it works a charm 👌🏽 when engraving the less air the better you only need a small amount to protect the Lense. Thanks for watching
Cheers, Matt
Probably cheaper as well, but a little messy. 🤷♂
Good job
Thank you!
Thanks for this video
Hey, your welcome thanks for watching! Cheers, Matt
Hey, helpful videos. Where do you source your materials from? Can't find any good providers of mdf or ply in AU. Cheers!
Hey mate, yeh there arnt any good places iv found Bunnings is where I get my 3mm ply and mdf from they say to use laser ply but the stuff from Bunnings seems to work well if you can find straight/flat pieces 😂🤣
With a bit more aggressive air assist you would get less of the smoke damage.
Can i ask where u get the masking tape from. Everything ive tried makes a huge mess
Hi Craig I get mine from Discountsupplies.com.au it’s under paper application tape
It’s low tack and works really well cheers
can it work to engrave on leather for a logo design and color fill it in
Yeh absolutely works very good on leather with the right settings 😊
what about using air assist while engraving
Hi from what I can tell you shouldn’t use air assist while engraving as it pushes the fumes/smoke back onto your material you do however need to have some air comming out the nozzle to protect the lense but only minimal
If you didn’t use air assist during the engrave you probably wouldn’t need the tape at all. On my diode laser I never use air assistance except to cut.
Yeh maybe so however you do need some air blowing out when engraving with a C02 to protect the lens 👍🏽 cheers, Matt
Thats a nice font can you tell me what it's called? Thanks!
Hi ken, I’m not at the computer right now but the next time I am I will check and let you know. Cheers Matt
@ Ken Sutton the font is called Hugheid from dafont 🤙🏽
@@woodendayz thank you for getting back to me I appreciate it!!🤙🏽🤙🏽
Can I ask what font this is?
Hi the font is called Hugheid and I got it from dafont .com
Hope this helps,
Cheers, Matt
What tape are you using. ?
Hey mate it’s just a mid tack transfer tape like the type they use for putting on sticker decals
Ta. 👍👍
You could have given the unmasked item a quick wipe with a damp cloth. It would still have been a bit quicker than applying and weeding masking.
use better air assist and you wont even need masking tape.
Yes I upgraded my air assist 👍🏽
MDF is an engineered wood with a plastic binder. It is one of the worst materials for producing copious brown tarry fumes. Masking tape is s sticky plaster to solve a problem that need not exist.
Anything I suggest from here is not intended as critcism because I have the T shirt and my similar mistakes are on video also.. First you must NOT use air assist when engraving . This is not cutting because there is nowhere for the fumes to go except upwards as you can clearly see from your video These fumes are very tar laden (like steam is water laden). You are blowing those micro droplets of tar back to the surface of your work where they do a great job of painting things sticky brown. Not only is it contaminating the surronding area but your engraving is being coated also. For engraving you ideally need zero air assist BUT that puts your lens at risk of contamination so you need an intelligent air assist kit ( see www.cloudraylaser.com/products/ultimate-air-assist-set?_pos=1&_psq=ultimate&_ss=e&_v=1.0 look in the description to see a video) or as a quick temporary fix, an in-line flow control like this for 6mm tube to reduce your engraving air flow to just a whisper. Trust me the results are remakable without masking.. There are other thinbgs you shoud do as well but I will leave you to watch theair assist video I reference below.
www.ebay.co.uk/itm/175129091789?hash=item28c681decd:g:eq0AAOSwL29h8QCE&amdata=enc%3AAQAHAAAAoLUCK%2Fvd6ARDezROqDi1K9U3L4Bqv5FaKU3sW2jwucM%2FXDaGLN8IT4j9fGpbQRSTy%2B2gXgw2YAVZtHylUQ42X%2BDTqxjabveBTu4Qi2IiD5148wHgEAo%2Fk0m%2F7g5iYTqfQalZQ%2FbCGHJgNkDTnSW0%2Fx1RdLPipi6Yq0o5KVFvdc1iz8fRRzA87Whmqt6PJq7rK9v9BvZr6uI%2FuC0UjlvfTcE%3D%7Ctkp%3ABk9SR_Kh7YSPYQ
I note 2 things from your screen. It is backwards to your engraving. Press the ZU button to acces a menu that allows you to set your screen origin to the correct orientation. You are only using 40% power for cutting. The best, cleanest and fastest cuts (without damaging your tube ) should normally be done with typically 75% to 80% (max and min) power and FULL air assist.
For anyone dropping into this video I recommend you watch the real truth and science about air assist here because there are so many misunderstandings, myths and blatent untruths about this subject czcams.com/video/79VZjMdfBmI/video.html
Also there is a lot more to be learnt quickly about all aspects of laser technology here.
laseruser.com/the-concise-rdworks-learning-lab-menu/
Have great fun with your onward journey learning about this fascinating technology. Discovery is very satisfying experience as you found with masking masking. However, always look backwards when you discover a fix and try to logically understand the reason you implemented the fix. Watch a few Trotec videos to see the so called experts teaching you how to apply sticky plasters. (masking being one of them).
@SarbarMultimedia
Hi Russ, first off thanks for checking out my video iv watched many many hours of yours!! Your a very knowledgeable man when it comes to these machines your in depth videos are amazing and I’d advise anyone and everyone who is interested in C02 lasers to check them out!! 👍🏽
Secondly I do have the cloud ray ultimate air assist installed on my machine the same one you designed after reading your comment I realised I had the needle valve unscrewed a bit too much on the solenoid allowing too much air to pass through while engraving!!
Thanks for the tip with the screen iv just not been too worried about the orientation of the preview and as for the power are you saying it’s best to run at 80% and at a quicker speed even on thin materials?
Last of all In no way do I think I’m an expert or fit to offer advice I’m just learning as I go and enjoy posting up some vids along the way 😀
Cheers Matt
Didn't expect to see you here. I watch a lot of your videos.
I've been thinking (in the back of my head) that a vacuum nozzle assist (in addition to the normal venting) to the workpiece would be a better solution than the blowing air assist as it would take the tar away from the surface so none of it would settle and also keep the lens clean etc.
@@mrfoameruk
Thanks for looking over my shoulder. My videos are all about ME exploring the edges of this tecnology that others take for granted. This is pure self-education to keep my two remaining elderly grey cells exercised. If others can benefit from my selfish enjoyment then that's a bonus I never planned on.
I rarely comment on other's videos but occasionally I encounter someone who is perpetuating a myth and I take the time , not as criticism of the video but to try and pass on facts to other who may be attractd to the video title.
Back to your dream of using vacuum as a cure-all. Sadly I have more than 3 tattered T shirts on that subject. Yes, itsseems obvious that sucking the fumes away will fix the brown residue problem.. Without wasting to many words. A 60mm diameter hood around the nozzle, a piece of 3/4" flexi plastic conduit and a vacuum cleaner was a 3/10. A 3/4" snake whipping back and forth at 200mm/s was a mechnical disater waiting to happen....and it did. However I did learn that
1) the hood had to be close to the work (about 3mm)
2) The hood masked visibility of the nozzle
3) Drawing the fumes awy with no air assist was not preventing the lens from being "smoked"
4) Any air assist to solve 3) was undermining the vacuum efficiency
5) A vacuum cleaner running the whole time??????
I then rethought the problem to utilise compressed air to induce upward air flow around the nozzle. There is a property of fluids and gases called the Coander effect and this has been exploited with devices called air amplifiers. Here is an example of such a device uk.rs-online.com/web/p/air-amplifiers/7606087
Expensive and not suitable in standard form, I designed my own variation. It was great fun for me to design and build but functionality I rated as 2/10
MK3 was again using compressed air (all small bore piping) to try and induce a suction with high pressure tangential air flow air to creaing a vortex..0/10 sum that up.
So as you can see its been great fun failing.
As a young engineering designer one of my elderly mentors preached a list of simple mantras to me FIRST. You MUST understand a problem FULLY before attemptiing a solution. Complete understanding is 50% of the solution. SECOND If your design concept required solving more and more problems at each stage, STOP.. The correct concept reduces rather than creates problems.. There are many more that are not relevant here.
I was so fascinated by the smokey chase that I completely ignored those wise principles. I eventually decoded the tarry problem by fully understanding the physics and mechanism by which the fumes were produced and the manner in which they behaved. That allowed me to optimise stategies for cutting and engraving that turned out to be diametrically opposite for each process but required no special equipment.....just understanding. I have tried to summerize and demonstrate those principles in this video
czcams.com/video/79VZjMdfBmI/video.html
Best wishes
Russ