Picked up a couple sheets of Black on Neon Yellow Laserable ABS Sheet from Inventables. It’s an interesting material but not sure how to get good results from it. Don’t like to waste material in testing if anyone else has experience with ABS. Recommendations?
We have regular music jams in a rustic log cabin with no electricity or running water. Originally it was a half dozen guys that would play banjos and fiddles, swap stories and pass the shine. That core group has grown to about 30 regulars and now includes a decent number of women musicians. Of course the guys and some of the women don’t care, but thought it might be useful to dig and build an outhouse for more discrete necessities. We were asked why there weren’t two outhouses. So to avoid confusion I created this unisex graphic. It will need to be made with wood to match the outhouse decor but thought it would be a good first test of the ABS. The pic is backlit.
I don’t like how the yellow is smudged with black. I used 450 lines/inch and the engrave is plenty deep enough. Of course I could do the same with two color acrylic or even two pieces of acrylic but I’m just experimenting right now with ABS.
I’m a newbie at this, so tell me if this is unworkable. Couldn’t you trace the image into the Glowforge and do a very fast, low power engrave to clean it up?
That’s what I used. A very fast low power engrave. I originally tried it at low resolution in a test box, didn’t like that so I went for more lines/inch. Still not there. The defocusing might work. Figured there is some setting that would be best, otherwise why sell the material?
Rowmark reccomends raster 60% power 80% speed 500 lines per inch when using a universal 40w on their most common two tone material. Looks like you’re pretty close to getting it.
, but ya it looks smudged. Not awesome.
Use a bit of alcohol to clean up the black on yellow…or next time do two passes. I use that material quite alot for signage and name tags. But never used the stuff from inventables…I get mine from Burlane not Rowmark…its less expensive than inventables too…
Everything I’m seeing says those are the same. “Rowmark - Bur-Lane, Inc.”
Actually, I just found this that says Rowmark did, in fact, purchase Bur-Lane.
And I guess you can also purchase through Johnson Plastics?
They were separate companies for a long time until just last year. Upside, my local Burlane has more to offer and I can save on shipping as its in town. Downside, they used to carry both Rowmark and their own brand that was even less expensive but now only the Rowmark…
Still less than Inventables. Not sure if its the same supplier…
That is a recurring problem with the two-tone plastics we’ve seen too. No solution, but I second the suggestion to try multiple passes rather than slower/higher LPI on a single pass.
Yes I am resurrecting this long dead thread as I couldn’t find anything better in the forum. Has anyone found any good settings for this stuff? I just tried some and my results were worse than @rpegg’s. I had tiny chunks of runny plastic that were blobbed on areas that should have been vaporized. I definitely think that multiple passes will be key, I did two and second was better but still not great. Any recommendations out there?
I had some pretty good results with the clearance Rowmark white on black and white on blue, but I notice that their top layer is really thin. So it’s designed to go away.
Thanks. I think I’m going to try going really light and try barely removing the first layer with two passes. I don’t have my settings in front of me but I think they were just too aggressive as you’re right, the first layer is really thin.
Its not settings for the GF but on my 30wt the settings are 100% speed and 35% power.
PPI is around 500 which is half of the max
Takes off the layer in one pass…
Alcohol can still be used if there is any tinge of color left…rub it down good (I use cotten cosmetic pads, then wipe off with soft cloth before it dries…( work fast…lol)
