Laser Glass Engraving
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Laser glass engraving is one of the techniques used by successful entrepreneurs. Many businesses are now more creative than ever. Some months ago a germany company called Cerion GmbH went into a popular cruise ship with a compact internal laser glass engraving system. The X2 laser engraver system was installed in the cruise ship for a whole week. The reason to make this movement was to demonstrate this compact laser engraver system was very easy to use, reasonably prices and compact enough to be installed in the ship.
One of the conclusion extracted from this experience is that compact laser glass engraving system are huge business opportunities and their uses are expanding the applications of marking and engraving in many different industry sections, including gift items and memorabilia.
During a whole week this engraver system, instaled in the Eastern Caribbean cruise, offered passengers portrait photo laser engraving in glass. Internal engraving refers to the two- and three-dimensional, sub-surface marking of transparent materials. The glass surface remains completely unaffected by this process. Only 2 men operated the engraver system without any notorious problems for 7-8 hours daily
“Passengers responded very positively,” says Volker Wienkamp, company spokesman.
In fact, he estimates that they got, at least, twenty clients per day. Cruise passengers could choose between a 3D cube with a size of 50 x 50 x 80 mm and a 2D glass plate with a size of 130 x 170 mm . The processing time estimated for each customer was 10-15 minutes.
This compact system was especially designed for mobile use. It can be also used in laser shops. This X2 compact laser engraver system utilizes a Nd:YAG laser (532 nm) to produce up to 1400 points per second with 2W of power. The user controls the system from a laptop (supplied with the system) via a connecting USB cable. The required 3D camera system, also controlled from the laptop, enables users to obtain photographs that are down to a fine level of detail and that have a strong contrast in glass.
The unit is sealed against laser radiation thanks to generously sized filter-glass doors. This way, the sub-surface engraving process, which itself is quite entertaining, can be demonstrated without risk and customers can see how their 3D portrait is created inside the glass.
As you can notice laser glass engraving systems and equipments are becoming a huge business opportunity.
Crystal Laser Engraving
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Last week I visited New York, really an impressive city. I took a walk around a commercial zone with small shops. I saw many typical gifts and souvenirs. You, probably, have one of these things. T-shirts with the I love NY logo, small statue of liberty reproduction and similar stuff. Suddenly I saw one that seemed me very curious. It was a bucket of crystal and inside, in perfect 3D, it was reconstructed the Statue of Liberty, based on small bubbles. Finally I discovered a souvenir without the the bad style of others. You can use this laser engraved crystals as paperweights.
But How can these laser engraving crystals are made?
The first thing is to create the purest bucket of crystal (You can always find purer crystals but you must consider the price as limitating factor) The reason to use pure crystals is clear.In case of using poor quality crystals the failure risk is obviously increased. The phase of laser engraving is carried out using an assembly of 3 laser beams with length of wave “green”, one for each three-dimensional coordinate. With the unified power of these three laser engraving beams or rays, a point is produced. This point is formed by a “melting” of the crystal, forming a microscopic bubble. This repeated process thousands of times in the 3 axes of coordinates produce a perfect three-dimensional image.
Many businesses exist nowadays that are dedicated to this work. They sell smaller machines than they can be used in commercial events and that, even, some of them also include a capturing lens to three-dimensional record your face in 3D inside one of these buckets.
Laser Marking Importance
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For many industries (semiconductor, electronics, automotive, medical and others) laser marking has long since become the preferred method for identifying parts. The technology offers the unrivaled combination of speed, flexibility, permanence, safety, repeatability and reliability. And anything you can print, you can laser engrave: scanned images, logos, bit maps and so on.
Simply put, laser marks are created by vaporizing, melting or annealing the material. Each has a specific effect for different applications and will dictate the proper laser to use. Vaporization produces a mark with depth in the material—engraving. Melting creates a contrasting mark through a thermal-chemical reaction—a technique often used with plastics. And annealing the surface (for example, with steel or titanium) can produce a dark mark without noticeable surface penetration.
In 2002 we estimate that approximately 12,000 industrial solid-state and CO2 lasers were integrated into either marking or engraving systems. The sales of these systems produce revenues of more than $465 million, making laser marking and engraving the second largest industrial laser application, behind laser metal cutting.
Solid-state lasers for marking (about 53 percent of all laser markers sold) are gradually shifting to diode-pumped sources (about 55 percent of the total solid-state lasers sold in 2002). Carbon dioxide lasers represent 47 percent of marking units.
Laser engraving, an application associated with marking, but focused on the award, novelty and gift market sectors, is an application ILS now tracks separately because of its size; more than 3000 low-power CO2 units were installed last year.
Solid-state laser markers generated more than $320 million in system revenues last year. And CO2 marking/engraving systems brought in another $140 million. So it is easy to see why this application sector was selected as the first in the Supplier Showcase series.