Is Darice Foamies Laser Safe?

Beyond the Manual
1

So, I was looking for a cheap material that could be laser cut as a simple and cheap protective liner.

I came across this foam which seems to fill my needs nicely. However, I cannot find good information on if it is laser safe. I have looked for an MSDS, and I have looked for good examples of what others have done but I have not really found anything I trust.

Link to Amazon for the foam:
http://a.co/1wIr6YO

2

Generally, they are EVA foam. EVA stands for Ethyl Vinyl Acetate, and is not the type of vinyl you ave to worry about, and there are lots of posts about EVA foam on the forum.

The big one to avoid is PVC, because of the C, which stands for Chloride.

You’ll want to get confirmation that they are EVA foam, but I think they are.

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3

Yeah, I know EVA foam is good. However, there were some statements in the question and answer section of the product listing which indicated that this was not EVA foam. I do not know if they are wrong or just being overly specific.

4

I hunted around and found a ton of topics, including some about where to get it inexpensively:

https://community.glowforge.com/search?q=EVA%20foam%20settings
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5

Yeah I googled around a bit and Darice isn’t saying 100% what they are made of anyplace that I could find. Cagey. If you have doubt, it might be safer to look for a good inexpensive EVA supplier? Chances are you can get it less expensively than brand name Darice, to boot?

6

Yeah, I think you are probably right.

7

You could run a copper test on it. That would at least tell you if it had any chlorine in it.

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8

I’ve used them for some experiments. Before I did, I called Darice directly and spoke to someone there. She told me the “foamies” were polyurethane foam, which I didn’t expect. In any case, it cuts well.

These are the ones I used: Foamies 10-pack

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9

Not the most scientific analysis but the Micheal’s Creatology brand foam sheets describes them as “EVA Rubber Sheets” in Spanish. Sounded good to me and they have been cutting great.

image

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10

jakerember , here is the post I did not too long ago on this.

11

So, I got some and did a little cutting and some burn testing before putting it in the GF. No scary chlorine flame! It had a little odor but nothing too strong and nothing too persistent.

I cut it at 300 speed, 50 power. I could probably go faster though.

I used it to make a little foam grid to store some small figurines. I will probably post it in made on glowforge sometime soon.

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