Laser vs Router Engraving

[aVaTar]

I figured I'd resurrect this thread
Together with a fellow sim builder we purchased the 3020 CNC of ebay for $800 AUD.
With intention of milling overhead panels to begin with and whatever else that is required.
And so far, I'm very impressed with the machine. It routes out letters 2.7mm in height without any problems and will go much smaller!
I'm not sure why people critique this kind of CNC, probably because it's not strong for metals etc, but for plastics, wood it's perfect.
Here're some videos of the process:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FU1R_7k5SE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfmkTYOZ7bU
and actual cutting process:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUmgrMR-EO0

I'll post some photos of the overhead panels later.

[paulnd]

I also have 3020 CNC and I'm very happy with it, could you provide more details of the bit you're using, material used for panel etc?

[aVaTar]

Material is just white acrylic, spray painted(FS3611 from can. 4.5mm thick.

For cutting, I'm using a 2mm, 1 flute endmill. I found that single flute gives much much! better results compared to the 2 flute ones. 2 flute was a ruined panel, 1 flute - a perfect result. Possibly the plunge/feed rate can be adjusted for the 2 flute one, donno.. didn't bother with it anymore, but I'd 100% recommend 1 flute.

For engraving - 0.2mm V bit, nothing to it really . Engraving depth of 0.1mm - 0.15mm
I do use this amazing autolevelling application - www.autoleveller.co.uk. And it's free! I don't even connect a probe, just measure 4 corners of the plastic before engraving and that gives a great consistent engraving result across whole area. Otherwise, it's quite common for work piece to be off by more than 0.1mm across 300mm length. Even a spec of dust(from previous cutting) could be sufficient.

[paulnd]

thanks for the information, I recently discovered autoleveller but haven't used it yet

[Live2Fly]

Hi Wendy,
First off, I think these panels came out excellent, congrats on some professional looking panels!

I know this thread is almost over 6 months old, but I have a quick question. I'm looking to do pretty much the same thing you are doing but I want to create some panels for my C172 cockpit I'm getting ready to build.

The gauge in the first image that you said was CNC engraved, did you also make the gauge itself? If you did what type of material did you use? I was thinking of using black acrylic for the bezel and gauge faces that needs multiple color (ASI for example) and then print out and apply a decal of the actual gauge face. Anything that was a single color, white for example could be painted and then through the CNC process, it should expose the white text underneath (or whatever underlying color was chosen.)


Thanks for taking the time to read this!

I have acces to both a cnc and a laser unit so here is a little explanation.

I'm using both laser engraving en cnc engraving. CNC engraving also gives very good results. However it takes much more time to do it very fine. A laser does the same job in 30 seconds and the quality is better.

You can buy a good cnc for around 2000 euro and add some for a good engraving nose (that is a must) and you can start engraving.

A laser 30 Watt will cost you around 10.000 euro and in addition you will also need airfiltering units.

I also asked prices to some professional laser engraving companies, but that is far beyond what I want to pay for engraving a panel.

The first picture is done with cnc engraving, the next 2 are laser engraved.

Regards, Wendy

[Wendy]

I made the gauge completely from acrylic including gears. If you cannot do the engraving you can also print on plastic paper, ask the copy shop and they will help you out.

Regards,wenDy

[Live2Fly]

Awesome! That's what I was hoping you did.

Thanks!