Outsourced some laser engraving - is this quality reasonable?

[jtiii]

We had a company make this sign for us. I think this looks really bad. I can just barely see the texture from 8 ft away. CLoser in is bad. Even far enough away it looks like a dirty white instead of a white, I'm guessing because of all the little shadows. My partner is like don't worry about it. Is this really what I should expect from laser engraving? I didn't realize the quality was so different from CNC routing.

Close up - units in mm.

Brightness and color of lasered areas vs back of substrate (black vinyl and white paper to normalize the brightness and contrast)

 

[CanuckSigns]

We engrave tons of these signs, this is absolutely not acceptable, red/white material needs to be engraved twice to remove the pink staining from the text. Also the texture is indicative of running the laser at a low dpi to lower the engraving time.

 

[weyandsign]

You can clean the lettering with WD40 and a microfiber cloth. It might help some. But yeah, it looks bad.

 

[Superior_Adam]

Yeah that would not pass at my shop. The engraved part should be smooth and not show the lines. Red with white has to have 2 passes and usually we engrave from the bottom up so that the exhaust isn't passing over the already engraved part. Makes clean up a lot easier.

 

[JBurton]

Oh, I thought it was a brushed texture and that it looked fair, just dim where the brush strokes were.

 

[StarSign]

We always run red bottom to top. This looks like Fast/Cheap/Right.

 

[ikarasu]

Did you get it done at a shop... Or just from someone?

Looks worst than the first time I engraved red lamacoids.


I'd say your customer probably won't care though... We see more detail than they do.


Ask if you can return it for another pass.

 

[jtiii]

Well the quality wasn't reasonable but at least the vendor was; he's going to replace it for us.
Also though, funny story—the customer asked for a rigid sign and approved the material, and this morning I asked for details about the surface it's going on, so I could get them the right tape. They just replied "it's going on the glass panel of a door"

 

[White Haus]

We engrave tons of these signs, this is absolutely not acceptable, red/white material needs to be engraved twice to remove the pink staining from the text. Also the texture is indicative of running the laser at a low dpi to lower the engraving time.

Everyday I learn something new about laser engraving plastic.... a lot more to it than meets the eye I guess!