Falcon A1 10W – Engraving Experience & Safety Question
I recently engraved some polished stainless steel and polished blue stainless steel dog tags using my Falcon A1 10W. I didn’t notice the warning label on the cover at the time, but the results were impressive—it engraved cleanly into the metal with no issues.
Encouraged by that, I tried a 24k gold-plated dog tag. The laser stopped after just two letters and wouldn’t continue. I was later told that the high reflectivity of the gold likely caused the laser to bounce back, triggering a safety shutdown to protect the diode.
Now I’m unsure about continuing with polished stainless steel. It worked well, but I know it’s still reflective—just not as much as gold.
So I have two questions:
- Is it safe to keep engraving polished stainless steel with the Falcon A1?
- Can I use CerMark Ultra or a similar spray to reduce reflectivity and protect the laser when engraving stainless steel?
I won’t be engraving 24k gold tags again—I don’t want to risk damaging the machine. Just looking for guidance to keep things safe and consistent moving forward.
This is my personal opinion, I accept no responsibility if anything breaks:
It shouldn’t really be a problem. The main reason is that the laser is completely out of focus when it is reflected back, so the power/mm² is rather low. I haven’t had any problems with shiny material so far.
I was marking metals fine on shiney materials such as stainless steel and coloured metals. Then the laser stoped marking at all on those same metals. It would still work on wood but a lot fainter than before unless you turned up the power and slowed down the speed. I was told i needed to replace the laser head.
I have done that now and wanting to mark metals, can you just colour over the metal ngraving area with a sharpie or are you supposed to get the laser spray?
As far as I know, the real purpose of the spray is to give you a dark black engraving mark. I am thinking that the spray would help reduce or stop the laser from bouncing back when working with shiny surfaces. It seem like there should be some kind of product that would prevent bounce back or absorb the beam. Maybe some type of tape. Since the machine will engrave metal and stainless (stainless that’s dull), why can’t we put something on the surface so it is not shiny. The machine does a nice job on stainless, just do not want to damage my machine. I wish I knew the answer but I will keep digging and searching. The only information I have found said that the 24k Gold plated tag is much more reflective than the polished stainless and should NOT be engraved on a diode laser. I would also think that using as high of speed as possible would also help reduce the problem.
Thanks for your information. Do you use special speed and power when working with reflective surfaces?
No the speed and power depends on the what is needed for the best engraving effect.
I have installed the latest version of Falcon Design Space. I went to engrave some anodized blue aluminum tag this message came up. The last part is just what we have been talking about here in this post. WARNING: Please note, Do not use blue light to engrave mirrored metal as laser reflection can easily damage the laser. Use IR/FIBER lasers for engraving mirrored metal, OR COVER THE MIRRORED METAL WITH A BLACK FILM COATING BEFORE USING THE BLUE LIGHT FOR ENGRAVING. Falcon Design Space is by Crealty Falcon right? And if so, using black laser spray will fix the issue of engraving mirrored finishes right? Sounds like it to me.
Check out my lastest response on the post about engraving reflective, mirror finish parts.