SYNRAD, INC. - http://www.synrad.com  
Thursday, December 4, 2003
Issue 76

SYNRAD's sealed CO₂ lasers are used in a variety of industrial processes including cutting, welding, drilling, and marking. This news brief showcases some of the interesting materials and products that are processed daily by Synrad's line of CO₂ lasers and marking heads.

Cutting 3M™ Visible Mirror Film

   This highly reflective film, created by the 3M Corporation, was slit using a Synrad sealed CO2 laser and an FH Series marking head. Beam delivery was achieved using an 80mm focusing lens with a 116-micron spot size and 0.8mm depth of focus.

   The 21 slits, each 5-mm long and approximately 100-microns wide, were cleanly cut using five watts of power at a velocity of five inches per second. Total cycle time was 1.13 seconds.

   Visible mirror film is a Multilayer Optical Film (MOF) technology developed by researchers at 3M. The paper-thin film is fabricated using hundreds to thousands of layers of transparent polymers laid with nanometer precision on a substrate. Due to the optical interference effects of the layered polymers, mirror film’s reflectivity is greater than 98% at all angles of incidence.

Marking 2D Codes on Stainless Steel

   This application required encoding a 10-digit part number into a Data Matrix ECC200 2D bar code on a stainless steel part. The task was accomplished by using 120 watts of power focused through an FH Series marking head. A 125mm HP (high power) lens delivered the 180-micron diameter beam onto the part with a 3mm depth of focus.

   We created the 0.375” × 0.375” square 2D code using WinMark Pro Laser Marking Software, setting Velocity to seven inches per second and Resolution to 300. Cycle time for the raster-scanned 2D code was 4.8 seconds. The code is easily readable using a barcode vision system even though the reader “sees” mark contrast values as low as 20% on the highly reflective stainless surface.

"Invisible" Marking on Acrylic

   Need to mark text or identifying information on acrylic parts without detracting from the look of the piece? If so, follow the steps below to create a mark that is all but invisible unless viewed at the correct incident angle.

   For this demonstration, we used a SYNRAD 10W CO2 laser, FH Series marking head (with a 200 mm focusing lens), and WinMark Pro software. After creating two lines of stroke text (Simple font), we identified the following mark parameters:

Set Velocity to 15 inches per second.

Set Power to 10% (the goal is to mark with approximately 1.5 Watts of power. On this particular laser that corresponded to a duty cycle percentage was 10%.

Set Resolution to 750.

Set Text Height (on the Format tab) to 0.165 inches. 

   We also adjusted Pline delay values to minimize hot spots at the beginning and end of line segments. For this example we set Pline Start Delay to 100, Pline End Delay to 550, Interseg Delay to 0, and Off Vector Delay to 300.

   All other mark parameters were left at their default values. At these settings, we marked the 25-character text string in 0.48 seconds. As the photos illustrate, the text is not noticeable until carefully inspected at the proper angle.

Browse Synrad's Applications Database

Search our online library for more applications of Synrad's sealed CO₂ laser technology. Sort by material, process, or industry.

http://www.synrad.com/search_apps/Default.htm

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