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!

 

[Vassago]

Easiest way to visualise the process is to imagine etching it with a pin.

Every line it moves down has to be smaller than the diameter of the pin in order to get a flat surface.. Usually isn't so you get raised parts where the engraved lines don't meet, so by doing two passes you then break that into tiny blocks. Best way is to slightly defocus the beam so it's now bigger and passes overlap.

Where as a Cnc cutter can have a flat base and large diameter so the passes can be further apart and it's faster and flayer..