Safe to cut food grade white neoprene?

I recently purchased a sheet of food grade white neoprene with the intention of using my Glowforge to cut precision letters and images from it, but have seen various articles indicating that it may be dangerous to do so. Has anyone had experience with this kind of material and offer any recommendations or concerns? The material specifics can be found via this amazon page link.https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01NAG4I3J/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
It looks like it should be safe, but this isn’y my area of expertise, so any insight or detail would be welcomed. Thank you!

I’m not sure…Neoprene might contain PVC, and if it does, it will destroy your machine. (Very unsafe to laser PVC or vinyls that contain it.)

Do a search in the Beyond the Manual section (the little magnifying glass next to your icon in the upper right corner) for “neoprene” and see what other folks have to say about it.

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Try to find an Msds or sds for the material. I couldn’t find one on Allstate Gasket’s website so you might have to contact them directly. What you are looking for is the hazardous decomposition products section. If it shows HCl or hydrogen chloride, it will damage your laser (and your lungs if you are exposed).

I found an Msds for another brand of neoprene, and while it did not contain PVC it did contain chorinated components that produce HCl when decomposed or burned.

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It’s actually “Neoprene Polychloroprene”. And it’s the “Chloro” that’s the problem. Chlorine combines with moisture in the air to make HCL that will quickly corrode the electronics inside the machine.

I wouldn’t put it in my laser cutter.

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Thank you! =)

Google Search on Neoprene

ulsinc on neoprene

Copper test from Glowforge

I’d test it before use. I’ve found many plastics safe and a few that I thought were safe that weren’t.

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