engraver?

[Gus]

http://www20.tomshardware.com/business/20050113/ces_innovations-05.html

 

[tommytones]

$10K :shock: It better work well!

 

[Guest]

wow, that thing is friggin cool! Now where did I put that extra 10 grand I had lying around.... :green:

 

[Scenaria]

notice the little detail!

prices START at $10k

:green:

 

[alk509]

Yeah, laser engravers in general aren't cheap...

Hey Tom, what ever came out of your DIY CNC experiments???

Peace,
Al.

 

[tommytones]

Had to put things on hold for a little while due to lack of funding :green: . I did find some interesting stuff and approaches to it though. I haven't given up on it!

 

[Tekay]

Wonder if my A3 x/y plotter is useful for a project like this?
Just have to rebuilt the arm first so it can hold a drilling machine?

 

[Emperor-TK]

I'm thinking that either etching or sandblasting might be the way to go for a cheap DIY engraving/lettering solution. I figure that an anodized panel could be masked off with a dry-film or liquid resist and then photo-imaged to open up the areas that need to be marked. I know that both acids and bases will attack an aluminum oxide layer. I don't know how clean the process is though, in terms of quickly etching the oxide away without destroying the resist itself. I might play around a little with this at work and do a little poking around on the web to see if this might be a viable process. If I need to use HF, aqua regia, or concentrated caustic to do the etch (all very nasty stuff), I'm going to pass on this idea.

Otherwise, sandblasting might work, using the photo resist in place of the vinyl mask commonly used for decorative sand blasting. Here is a DIY kit for $500 USD. Very interesting...and a lot cheaper than those "so-called" frikin' lasers...

http://members.aol.com/aaasuper1/package1.htm#packages

Regards,
Chris

 

[alk509]

[quote author="Emperor-TK"]If I need to use HF, aqua regia, or concentrated caustic to do the etch...[/quote]

Good ol' FeCl3 should work...

Somebody here etched a panel for an audix rack job and it looked very good. Maybe he/she can chime in?

Peace,
Al.

 

[Emperor-TK]

Cool. Thanks Al. I'll give this a shot and post my results.

-Chris

 

[Guest]

One thing that I have wondered for a while
If you do get the engraving done DIY - how do you infill the engraved markings with colour?
Anybody got any ideas?

 

[BladeSG]

This is the thread with Peter P's etched Audix FP.

http://www.groupdiy.com/index.php?topic=2962&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

I think I'll also give this a go with 'press n peel' when I finally finish the layout for the first GSSL I built.

 

[Emperor-TK]

Doh! Peter did bare aluminum (nice job BTW). That's what I was afraid of. My goal is to etch through the black anodized layer on my Par-metal cases down to bare aluminum, which would provide the contrast. I'll look into this a little more.

I thought of big potential problem for the sand blasting method. The kit comes with a dust mask to prevent inhalation of silica dust generated by the removed glass. If the process similarly creates finely divided aluminum dust, there is a big problem. First problem is that finely divided aluminum powder is very toxic. Secondly, it is VERY explosive. The frickin' lazers are starting to sound better...

-Chris

 

[gyraf]

I really don't think you can etch through the anodizing. This stuff is unbelivably hard and chemically non-reactive (aluminum oxides - also known as "sapphire" in a slightly different appearance)

Jakob E.

 

[rlaury]

Hey Guys:
Take a look at this. Especially the AlumaJet. This stuff works good.

http://www.horizonsisg.com/metalphoto/default.asp?act=Products

 

[BladeSG]

The Metalphoto family of photosensitive anodized aluminum products require a high contrast film, negative or positive, to produce an image. You can make the film through traditional wet photographic film processing equipment, direct to film dry thermal imagesetters, film substitutes, or through your local film service bureau

Huh?

Expose the Metalphoto plate through the film negative in a contact vacuum exposure frame. Typical exposure times are between 5 and 30 seconds, depending on copy. After the next processing step, the areas on the plate that are exposed to light turn black and those not exposed to light, remain silver.

Err....?

 

[gyraf]

AlumaJet seems to simply be anodized aluminum that is not "finished" (surface closed) yet.

Here's an article: "Anodizing for amateurs":

http://archive.dstc.edu.au/BDU/staff/ron/meng/anodizing.html

Jakob E.

 

[Emperor-TK]

The hopefull thing that I get from this article is that the old oxide layer is stripped of with mild caustic. :grin: Granted, aluminum oxide is very tough, but fortunately mechanical toughness and chemical toughness are two different issues. It looks like the unknown here is the aluminum alloy used in the panel. It won't do much good etching off a black oxide layer if the caustic turns the exposed aluminum black too. :sad: We have a lot of aluminum ring stands here in my lab that have turned black from a variety of bases. A post etch acid treatment might take care of this problem though.

I think that I am going to bring my pannels into work tomorrow and raid the acid and base cabinets and see what happens.

-Chris

 

[BradAvenson]

[quote author="gyraf"]I really don't think you can etch through the anodizing. This stuff is unbelivably hard and chemically non-reactive (aluminum oxides - also known as "sapphire" in a slightly different appearance)

Jakob E.[/quote]

That is exactly what happens when you laser engrave. The laser opens up the panel and burns off the coloring. Just make sure the panel isn't hard anodized otherwise your print will be gold, not white.

 

[Emperor-TK]

I messed around a little in the lab today. As I expected, iron chloride does nothing to the oxide. Concentrated ammonium hydroxide also did nothing. Concentrated potassium hydroxide ate it off in a matter of seconds, down to bare metal. :thumb: I was out of sodium hydroxide to try, but I would expect similar results to the KOH. The KOH worked so well, I'm not even going to bother with strong acids. The resist is probably better suited for bases anyway (since that is the developer bath). Also, there won't be any acid fumes to deal with.

Tomorrow I'm going to mess around with the photo resist and see how it goes. It seems promising at this point. There are a couple of options if I tune the process right (time, temperature, etchant concentration). Before removing all the oxide, the KOH first removed a layer that had all the coloring. A whitish oxide layer remained, similar to my laser engraved panels. Then the rest of the oxide came off exposing the bare aluminum. This might give me the option of having either white or metallic lettering. Next I played around with iron chloride on the exposed aluminum. This particular alloy turned black, which is similar to what happens to some other alloys I've encountered with strong acids or bases. So depending on the alloy that Par-metal uses, this might give the option of having either black, white, or metallic lettering.

Very interesting...hopefully more results tomorrow....

-Chris