SYNRAD, INC. - http://www.synrad.com  
Friday, January 23, 2004
Issue 79

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.

Marking 2D Codes on Ceramic-Coated Steel

   In addition to supporting the RVSI Data Matrix™ two-dimensional symbology, Synrad's laser marking software,  WinMark Pro, now supports the Denso QR Code^®. Denso’s QR Code incorporates three position detection patterns for omni-directional, ultra-fast reading and is capable of handling numeric, alphanumeric, byte data, as well as Japanese kanji and kana characters. QR Code also provides the user a choice of four error correction levels ranging from Standard to Ultra High Reliability.

    The smaller Data Matrix and QR Codes (0.50” square) were created with WinMark Pro’s Spot Marking Style set to Yes and the 2D Barcode Bitmap property set to No so that each filled cell is instead marked using unfilled vector circles. Both codes were marked with 22 watts of power at 15 IPS. The Data Matrix code was marked in a cycle time of 2.92 seconds; the QR Code marked in 3.25 seconds. Total cycle time for both spot-style codes and accompanying text was 6.56 seconds. 

   We marked this ceramic-coated steel sample, used in the steel industry, using a 25W CO2 laser and FH Series marking head equipped with a 125 mm focusing lens (focused spot size of 180 microns with a 3mm depth of field). All four codes, Data Matrix and QR Code, contained 31 alphanumeric characters and were read using a Microscan Quadrus EZ vision system. We also decoded the Data Matrix codes using both an RVSI handheld reader and an RVSI vision system.

Marking 2D Codes on Delrin

The 2D Data Matrix code, like other barcodes and bitmap images, is typically marked using a raster-scanning technique that "fills" or "colors-in" the image being marked. WinMark Pro Application Note #1 describes how WinMark’s new Spot Marking Style property converts raster-filled cells to vector circles or spots that allow very small, very fast marking of 2D Data Matrix codes. This technique is fast enough that 2D codes are now a feasible application for marking "on-the-fly" with the FH-Series Tracker marking head. Click the link below to open or download a PDF version of WinMark Pro Application Note #1 - Spot-type 2D Data Matrix codes that fully describes how to create very small, fast marks with far less heat input into the material being marked.

WinMark Pro Application Note #1 - Spot-type 2D Data Matrix codes

New WinMark Pro Features

     In the past, some customer applications required the assignment of a single serial number or data set to multiple objects. Typically, the user would assign specific data to the first object, a barcode for example, and then assign the same data independently to a second object. On some occasions however, an external event such as an operating system crash could halt marking in the middle of a mark session, which resulted in the assignment of different data sets to these objects on startup. For example, if WinMark Pro closed unexpectedly after serializing and marking Text1 but before serializing and marking Barcode1 with the same serial number, then the Save Last Serial value for Text1 could be one digit greater than the Save Last Serial value for Barcode1 on startup. 

     The new Auto Text Type selection, From Another Object, allows you to link, or assign, the text caption from one object to another object or objects in the drawing so that sets of data remain fully synchronized throughout the mark session and across multiple mark sessions.   

            Restore Save Last Serial data to Text1 [data = 1000]

            Increment Text1 [1001]

            Save Text1 [1001]

            Mark Text1 [1001]

            Assign Barcode1 value from Text1 [1001]

            Mark Barcode1 [1001]

When Execute Auto Text When is set to After Mark, the opposite applies; Barcode1 must mark before Text1. If it is necessary to change the marking order, WinMark Pro does so and then displays “Mark order changed.” in the Mark Log window.

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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