I know companies that cut vinyl with the laser…
I’ve cut vinyl in my laser… Its not going to eat your laser immediately. Before anyone reacts…please continue reading to the end…
Cutting vinyl and PVC creates chlorine gas which in turn mixes with water content from the air and becomes HCL (hydrocloric acid)
As it is corrosive to acrylics and glass, if left on for long periods of time, it can scar and make these components brittle and crack. So mirrors, lenses and the see through lid are not safe.
…that being said…as long as you wipe down all surfaces you wont really damage the components of the laser if you dont do it often. Rubber and many plastics are not really affected from what I understand. HCL is stored in plastic bottles after all.
—This is the big issue with lasering Chlorine based products—
Once the gas is released, it is very bad for the human body or any flesh for that matter…ie pets etc.
In humid environments it mixes with water and collects on what ever you cut so when you pick it up or handle it…it CAN cause burns.
The gas continues to be released from vinyl or PVC for up to an hour or more after its cut. Even with really good ventilation, the HCL can collect in your ducting and slowly corrode…hard to wash those out…
Chlorine gas will damage eyes, lungs, mucus membranes, skin etc. You can’t grow those back so thats mostly why its unsafe to cut vinyl and PVC.
Unless you want to throw away your GF and risk poisoning yourself, don’t do it, brother. I’ve seen pictures of lasers turned into solid rust buckets from not too many pvc cuttings.
Before we knew about the effects, my dad’s tools rusted to hell from being stored in the garage next to the SEALED bucket of pool chlorine tablets.
You have the benefit of real world experience, and I believe it worked for you.
Some time ago I started to compute how much chlorine would be released when cutting PVC. At first it seemed like not that much, and I was thinking “eh whats the big deal”. Then it was pointed out to me that I had gotten the calculations wrong, and that the amount was at least 3 times what I initially thought. I will not be cutting any PVC.
As an aside, I have a bottle of fairly concentrated HCl sitting on a shelf, I use it to put a nice rusty patina on steel. It works really well for that, and I can only imagine what it would do to the insides of the lovely machine sitting in my office. As far as I am concerned, you would be hard pressed to clean this thing well enough to recover from that.
And the lenses are NOT glass. They can’t be in order to pass light at the frequency a CO2 laser uses.
My intent is not to scare anybody - Don’t Panic. The reality is you can never 100% trust your suppliers. Some of the raw materials we use where I work have to have certificates from their suppliers stating they meet certain specifications. Every once in a rare while the material has the cert, but they don’t meet the spec for one reason or another. These are industrial manufacturers/suppliers of high grade materials that have existed for decades and have been supplying said certs for about as long. Your general suppliers, whether it be ebay, Amazon, alibaba or Home Depot are going to have varying degrees of control, but none of them are probably used to being worried about “laser safe.” A plastic sheet with a 3M label or Dow or other big company name on it is far more likely to be what it says, but there are no guarantees.
So that leads me to my point: be prepared (have a vague idea what you would do) to get something you don’t expect. That doesn’t necessarily mean chlorine it could be anything. And that something could be, “last time it cut, this time it melted,” or “I don’t remember it smelling like musk ox barf in here” or it could be dangerous as in, “wow did you see that flame?” Dan and company have already designed in some safety features but the universe will win if it really wants to. So, Don’t Panic; balance the pros and cons of buying from different vendors; have a generic contingency plan. A laser is just another power tool and needs to be treated like one.
Just to clarify, when I posted my opinion on cutting PVC, I failed to say that it is not recommended to do a lot obviously. I’m just saying if you accidentally cut a piece or two it’s not going to immediately destroy your machine.
Excellent advice. I plan to keep a logbook detailing each cut, settings, materials, etc. like the one I keep on my smoker. (That logbook sure comes in handy when it comes to ribs-smoking time!–no reinventing the wheel.). I’ll put the decal @JBV is sending me on the cover.
The more humidity, the more pronounced the action.
Dry here in Colorado, but remember that rusty steel I showed you? Cleaned that to the bone with muriatic acid, which is a dilute solution of hydrochloric (20-30%) in a pan, left it overnight.
The next morning, the steel table I had it on (under power ventilation) had a layer of rust all over it, and so did every bit of ferrous metal in the area. Those fumes just wafted by on their way out. It’s pretty dramatic. Cumulatively, I know it will eat a machine in any and every way it can.
I like the whole “there’s never a stupid question” thing.
Seems like this post should be here. Take a moment to test material (unless, I suppose, it has an invisible barcode verifying it’s makeup) to avoid finding out.
I hope you don’t feel I was discounting your experience!
You have obviously gathered a lot of knowledge about working with laser cutters. As someone who is just starting out I find that very valuable.
Nor do I think that we should let other people decide what we will or won’t do with tools we own. I have often pushed my machine tools past their intended limits, or used them in ways that might make other machinists cringe. But I try to make sure I figure things out in advance, and as a result I still have all my extremities.
Thanks for sharing what you know and the practical knowledge of “been there done that”.
Nope…didn’t feel that way at all. I’m fortunate to have 13 years of experience with a laser…and I still dont know everything yet When I got my first laser I was all about trying everything and anything to see what all it could do, but for the last 8 or 9 years, I’ve been so busy with my company making laser cut stencils for face and body painting I got away from being creative. Im truly jealous of all of you who are discovering it for the first time with an amazing machine such as the Glowforge…all the trial and errors will be almost non existant in comparison… You know facebook was just in its infancy, and there wasnt anything like this awesome forum filled with creative people…lol.
Hanging around you all has definitely resparked my creativity and I cant wait to see what the future brings
Yes, the contrast between what you had to slog through, and my learning curve will be dramatic. Having come up that long road will give you a perspective that can only be had by experiencing 13 years of the tool’s evolution - and will give you a fuller appreciation of the forge than the newly indoctrinated of us can have.
Your experience, and freely sharing of it are valuable assets to the community!
“But… you already have a laser”. "Yes, but not one of these."
When I learned you already owned a laser with years of experience but were buying this, it helped assure me that it was something special.
Ok, plenty of people have commented on the effects of HCI on metals and plastics. Forget about that. If you ruin a GF, you are out a few grand. That is meaningless in the big picture.
Consider that chlorine gas was used as a chemical agent in the first world war, and horribly crippled or killed vast numbers of soldiers who came into contact with it. While it is unlikely that you will be able to release enough to expose yourself to the same doses that that they encountered unless you were deliberately being unsafe, why would you take chances? Your health and safety are far more important than a GF, do not take foolish risks and play with fire.
A minor quibble: Burning plastic with chlorine doesn’t release never gas, it would release hydrogen chlorine gas (HCI), which is an dangerous irritant, but not a nerve agent.
If you really feel a need to cut PVC, a milling machine might be a better choice since it doesn’t melt or burn the material.
When I got my first laser I was all about trying everything and anything to see what all it could do, but for the last 8 or 9 years, I’ve been so busy with my company making laser cut stencils for face and body painting I got away from being creative. Im truly jealous of all of you who are discovering it for the first time with an amazing machine such as the Glowforge…all the trial and errors will be almost non existant in comparison… You know facebook was just in its infancy, and there wasnt anything like this awesome forum filled with creative people…lol.
