CNC Laser Annealing a Business Card Holder
It’s been a while since I posted something with metal so here’s catchup time! I’m heading to an industrial conference in Pittsburg which is the second-largest city in the American state of Pennsylvania to get a few projects. I’ll be there with about two dozen other Canadians who are members of the Niagara Industrial Association, of which CNCROi.com is a member, as part of an international trade mission.
I generally stick business cards in my pockets but I wanted something a bit more professional to show Pittsburg’s titans of industry so an old Business Card Holder I got while I was in Australia seems to be asking for some annealing, using a new upgrade in the shop!
I want you to note the “blueish” widget on the head of the laser, what you see is the brand new fiber specific lens for our CNC laser. Whereas before, we only had a fraction of a mm of tolerance for our annealing and marking jobs, we’ve increased that exponentially to a few mm of play! There is some give and take but this business card holder is used and bent which would generally present a problem annealing it properly but with this new investment, NO PROBLEM!
Having the knowledge to do a job properly is good but having the right equipment turns headaches into triumph! We are quite a bit more far away as well from the product which gives us an additional advantage, we can work on objects with more tolerance and varying height that would have otherwise banged-up against the our Austrian laser head! Two huge wins with one investment into the quality of our equipment! Incase you are wondering, the cost of the lens alone is equivalent to some entire CNC laser systems out there… you want quality and consistency, get the best stuff on the market!
After the stainless steel business card holder was annealed, what you see above is the result, not pretty but a few wipes with BBQ fluid to remove residue and vaporized grit produces an amazingly deep and permanent black, the picture below. This is incredibly impressive considering how bumpy this stainless steel business card holder is and, to add insult to injury, isn’t level with the table, it slopes downwards which would be a killer without this lens to get right (if ever)!
Originally I was going to engrave my whole business card on this but I went for the understated look – it’s highly polished stainless steel, using the best CNC laser in the marketplace for this market segment means this doesn’t cause a problem as the beam can’t reflect back into the tube and go nuclear on me. Not something you want to attempt with some of the lasers out there that use aquarium pumps for their cooling and a household vacuum cleaner for their extraction.
Incase you were wondering, this lens has the same advantage with plastics too, so instead of melting it with our CO2 laser source, we can use our fiber even if the object is curved slightly with protruding parts just as well as if it was steel or composite. Watch the video of this stainless steel business card being annealed!
Are you a manufacturer producing metal or plastic widgets needing some marking or annealing? CNCROi.com has the equipment, knowledge and expertise to make it happen!
