Etching Acrylic is a Drag

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wood_fly
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Etching Acrylic is a Drag

Post by wood_fly »

Etching Acrylic. This is 1/2" acrylic cut with a 120 deg diamond drag at 750 mm/min (their recommendation) and 0.1" pressure, 45 deg etching fill.
I've had good success with this in the past but for some reason I got this issue in the upper part of both rectangles...any ideas as to why?
Thanks if you can help.
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Rcnewcomb
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Re: Etching Acrylic is a Drag

Post by Rcnewcomb »

Was the issue visible in the preview?
- Randall Newcomb
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adze_cnc
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Re: Etching Acrylic is a Drag

Post by adze_cnc »

Acrylic: cast or extruded? Or maybe it's really polycarbonate?

wood_fly
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Re: Etching Acrylic is a Drag

Post by wood_fly »

Not Poly..but curious, what if it was? Cast? How does this relate? Slower? Faster?

New to the diamond drag...but how is this different?

Thanks,
T

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martin54
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Re: Etching Acrylic is a Drag

Post by martin54 »

Polycarb is softer, my experience it is more sensitive to correct settings but you would probably notice areas all over that didn't look right rather than a couple of isolated spots.
Cast is less flat than extruded so maybe lower areas on the surface where a bit more pressure is needed.
have you surfaced your spoilboard & trammed your spindle ?
Like vcarving drag engraving required a very flat work surface & for the spindle to be set up correctly :lol: :lol:

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Xxray
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Re: Etching Acrylic is a Drag

Post by Xxray »

Tough to diagnose drag bit/plexi issues.

You could try doing a hatch to minimize issues like that. I often spray a light coat of clear coat on plexi designs, results can be surprising. Also on something like the V I would have node edited to turn it into a single shape, that way at least you could have avoided that separation line.

None of that of course addresses why it actually happened, you would need to run a series of tests to get an idea of that.
Doug

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adze_cnc
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Re: Etching Acrylic is a Drag

Post by adze_cnc »

A quick search for “VERKADA” shows the “V” logo having quite a large separation between the two rectangles.

To the original poster:
I got this issue in the upper part of both rectangles
What is “this issue”? The drag lines look very similar to other areas of the letters (see the ‘K' and the ‘A's). If it is that areas look “watery” and “discolored” I wondered if it could have been something in the underlying make up of the material (much like stresses in poorly annealed glass).

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Re: Etching Acrylic is a Drag

Post by wood_fly »

Thank you all.
Preview was perfect.
TAP plastics says probably extruded, but I got it from the leftover/cutoff bin so might be cast.
I did flatten/tram my board, but it has been a while and I probably should do it again.

Clearly the drag didn't lift off the material (and I did want the little gap as that is how their logo is) but perhaps with a little "less" pressure it didn't cut as deeply if the surface wasnt' quite right. I appreciate all the input and will give it another go. Meanwhile it doesn't look too bad when lit up...
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