ABS is a strong, lightweight copolymer of Acrylonitrile, Butadiene, and Styrene. ABS is manufactured in various grades—some are designed for molding; others for thermoforming or extrusion; and some grades are even designed for electroplating, which provides that chrome-plated look popular in many plumbing and automotive applications.

This black ABS electrical connector housing exhibits a typical CO2 mark on plastic—an engraved mark with slight contrast. To achieve this mark, our setup consisted of a 10-watt Synrad laser, an FH Series marking head, and our WinMark Pro laser marking software. The FH head is equipped with a 125 mm lens that provides a 180-micron (0.007”) focused spot with a 3 mm (0.118”) depth of focus.

In order to automate the date coding process, we created a text object in WinMark Pro, and set the Auto Text Type to Date Code Text.

At a power level of 10 watts and a mark Velocity of 889 millimeters per second (35 inches/second), we cut individual 25-mm diameter discs in a cycle time of 0.12 seconds per piece. Not only are the resulting cut edges clean, but the polyester mesh fabric is also sealed by the interaction of the CO2 beam.

To optimize this cutting process in a manufacturing environment, use WinMark Pro’s Array properties to create an array of 9 to 12 discs within the 125 mm lens' mark field. As an example, set Array Columns to 3 and Array Rows to 3 or 4 and then set Column Spacing/Row Spacing properties to 26 mm to obtain the most parts per section of filter material. Using the Power and Velocity settings described above, you can cut an array of 9 parts in 1.11 seconds or 12 parts in a cycle time of 1.46 seconds.