Versalaser PCB graving

[sebu_cristi]

Hy everybody, i'm new to the forum and the laser operations. I have an Versalaser 230 with an 30W laser at work. I would like to know if i can engrave/get rid of an layer of cooper on an pcb. I have the layout in corel and what needs to go away is red the rest white. The cooper layer is lets say thinner then an half mm. If i need to go over the pcb more then 1 time its ok.

Thanks

[Denford Admin]

You would need to coat the copper with the metal marking compound.
I tried it a long time ago with a similar powered Laser, and it didn't even mark the surface - even with the compound.
The only thing I found could be useful for was to turn the board over (if its single sided) and cut out the board or add mounting holes.
Even then, the laser cut straight through the board, but left the copper layer untouched (which was only 0.035mm thick by the way!)

However, I've heard that the latest VersaLasers and software drivers are much better at metal marking, so you may have better results

[sebu_cristi]

Today i tried it out. I put some spray paint on a pcb and put it under the laser. Here we have the problem, the laser does not remove ALL the paint. So, if i put it afterwards in the etch solution, it does not remove all the cooper it should. There is a thin paint film on the cooper(remained because it was not removed completely). Later i tried it with some other settings, 100% power 3,8%speed and 500PPI, mode set to throughput. Here it did remove all the paint from the cooper but it did damaged the paint it shouldn't.

Any advise? Did someone tried it out?

Or, how could i obtain a thinner paint on the cooper.

[Denford Admin]

If you're still using acid etching / erosion, I don't see the point of using the versalaser ?
Why not print your circuit board design and use photo sensitive board (https://sfprime.net/pcb-etching/index.htm)
Or do something like this:
https://hackaday.com/2008/07/28/how-to-e ... sided-pcb/

[sebu_cristi]

It is more convenient for me to spray paint on a pcb and then remove the paint from it with the laser and etch it afterwards. PCB's with photo-resist are a bit pricey too. Using the method with the iron: what if my design is bigger then the surface of the iron, a part of the design stays cold the other gets hot. I don't think it's ok.

[Denford Admin]

I guess you need to maybe look at coated boards or painting them with a better resist paint / pen

IMHO it feels like the wrong way to go - seems like a longer process using the laser to remove the largest area of board - I'd also be worried about whether continuous reflections are good for the laser and optics in the long term.

[sebu_cristi]

i am thinking about painting the cooper black with a marker. I don't remove all the cooper, i use a bottom layer as ground. The laser needs to remove the part between the gnd signal and the other signal. ~1/8 inch.

[sebu_cristi]

Finally i got a almost satisfying end result. To get it i can not use the eagle png file. I needed to do a trace in corel x4 to obtain thin lines that were than lasered. Can i use gerber files as the printing layout? Would that be better?

[Denford Admin]

It will be down to the software being able to print the gerber as vectors - it may just rasterize the whole thing, and so end up with jagged edges again.
If it's one of our lasers, you should be able to open a gerber in LaserCAM 2D, and print it as vectors from there.

[sebu_cristi]

To get a good result i need to go to corel and use trace-> technical drawing. Still it is not what i want. If i print the png from eagle cad, it does not matter how thin i make the black lines, they still are printed as thick lines. How can i influence the thickness of the lines?

[Denford Admin]

There is probably a minimum setting for track isolation gap distance in the software somewhere. The thickness of the black lines is probably being controlled by this number.

[sebu_cristi]

I do not use EagleCAD for printing the image. I export it as a PNG, than put it in Corel Draw and after that i print it. I do not get any feedback if i change the line thickness, it doesn't matter how thick the gap between the lines is, the laser always prints the same distance. If i import the picture to corel photo and use a 1-bti conversion and there i use one of the methods would i get a better result?

What other method should i use for paint removal from metal. In fact this is what i am doing. Frying the paint and then cleaning it with a toothbrush, so i get the bare coper and i can etch the circuit.

In the picture you can see a test that i made. I draw some lines, 10, 12, 16, 24mil. Then i used the method from above and printed the lines. 24mil looks like 12mil. The gap between lines and the big black part are to big in the test compared to exported picture.

[bradders]

General info:

The Co2 laser 10.6 micron in question will not mark or affect copper at all. It will simply not react.

These are the most common metals to mark with Metal marking compound due to the simple fact that the Co2 laser (10.6 microns) will not react with it.
• Aluminium
• Brass
• Copper
• Nickel

These are the most common metals to mark using ULS HPDFO lens kit with efficient power.
• Carbide
• Cobalt
• Pewter
• Steel
• Iron
• Titanium
• Tungsten

Regarding the tracing, The Corel Draw X5 does a wonderful job tracing oulines, much much better than Corel X3. This program is in comparision fairly cheap in comparison with heavy “professional” programs.
I am quite sure that X5 can be downloaded as a trial version, it might be worth checking out.

1 question: is the user rastering, vectoring or both? Based on the picture in his last post it looks like he is either out of focus (difficult to say since I have no reference of the size) or the best solution for clearness and details would be our HPDFO lens kit.

[Denford Admin]

What is a HPDFO lens ?
Is it more focused and only meant for engraving/marking and not cutting ?
Do Denford supply them ?

[sebu_cristi]

I am rastering it. If i change the color to red and i am vectoring it, would it be better? A HPDFO lense is pricey.

[bradders]

HPDFO......................

The High Power Density Focusing Optics provides extremely detailed engraving or fine cutting. Through advanced optics, the beam size is reduced to .00125, giving finer detail and a much more intense laser beam.

ADVANTAGE: HPDFO Optics achieves dramatically improved resolution for applications requiring extremely fine detail (small font sizes) or photos.

COMPATIBILITY: All Professional and XL Series laser systems; field retrofit kits are available for older machines.

COMMON USES: To provide improved resolution, finer, more detailed engraving and increased cutting depth; etch smaller text; vector marking and cutting thinner lines.

The HPDFO option allows the marking of stainless steel, titantium and cobalt without the need of ceramic coatings.

[Denford Admin]

If i change the color to red and i am vectoring it, would it be better?

I'm sure vector cutting (red) or vector marking (blue) will be better than rastering as the beam will only go around the shapes once.
When rastering, the beam is going backwards and forwards over pretty much the same area - which may be causing more paint to be blasted away (like you are seeing)

PS You can still vector-cut areas or shapes by filling them with a vector hatch pattern, eg:

[sebu_cristi]

Great, so what software do i need for this? If i load a png or jpg file would it convert black to vector and preparing it for cutting? What is the difference between vector cutting and vector marking?


here https://www.denford.ltd.uk/index.php?opt ... &Itemid=51 is what i wish my pcb should look like. I want the paint to be removed where the coper will be later removed.

[Denford Admin]

Just use Coreldraw and Coreltrace like this.

Corel-Tracing-PCB.jpg (227.85 KiB) Viewed 17548 times

I just removed the fill from the resulting trace in coreldraw, and set the line color to blue, and it's line thickness to 0


You have to make sure the colour is 100% red (ie, 255 Red;0 Green;0 Blue) or 100% blue for the standard VLS driver to reconise whether you are vector marking or vector cutting. This may not apply to your machine or driver combination - all it did on certain drivers was to adjust power and speed of the laser to allow for vector cutting (red) or vector marking (blue) or raster engraving (black or grey)

[sebu_cristi]

Thank you for the images, i will try it out and post the results. What for predefined material settings should i use?



PS: The black and white image i gave is the end result, for printing i need to invert the colors.

PS2 What alternative to quickcam 2d could i use(not corel).