I’ve seen a few people experimenting with engraving a wood surface to create a pocket, spreading powdercoat in it and then running a very low power engraving pass over it curing the powdercoat.
I decided I’d like to try something similar on steel to make some custom car parts.
As a test, I grabbed a chunk of powder-coated steel shelf and engraved a logo in it (20%/6000):
then I spread the powder coat over it filling the engraved area and set the power level very low (I figured I’d try 5% and work my way up), turned off the fan, and hit start.
No joy! The lense fan was off but the laser cooling fans started up and blew all my powdercoat away. Is there any way to turn off/disable the fans? Any other thoughts how to get this done?
I’m sure there is if I take the housing apart. I was hoping there was some clever software/firmware solution or some way of diverting the air, something less invasive.
I’m also wondering if they are DC fans if they can be reversed (I’m sure they can be physically flipped around), but again, that would be invasive, and I would imagine that it wouldn’t be great always drawing the smoky air from the shield above the cut through the heatsinks.
I’m guessing the lack of responses means people haven’t tried something like this here? Or is it just a lack of traffic (I haven’t gotten responses to anything I’ve written from anyone but forum experts/moderators)?
I think it’s lack of people who tried this approach.
Also, I"ve replied to the nice post you did giving info on what you did on slide scanner…so maybe you don’t get notifications?
I haven’t seen other posts from you in the Falcon forum, which is the only one I keep an eye on.
Anyway, hope I haven’t missed anything I could help with
I’ve just joined the forum as a 100% newbie user, and I clicked on this topic right away since I plan on doing some steel engraving as well.
What “color” is the user normally left with on steel if no powder coat is used? I’m thinking I’ll need to use a black powder coat for my project. I don’t even know where to begin with finding lettering choices and then creating my text at the correct size.
The “Product Manual” is hardly helpful! I need “Printing and using your Falcon 101” course handbook to acquire knowledge, but at least I can see someone else is using steel!
Yep, I watched this guy’s video as one of my “firsts” and found it still too advanced, but I found another one I like better and am keeping it to re-watch.
Nevertheless, all videos that pertain are at least somewhat helpful to me at this early learning curve stage.
So far, it’s the computer interface that’s most frightening!
