There are many types regarding an Engraving Machine out there. There are also many purposes with regard to engraving, you should consider this specific before you decide just what type of engraving utility you will go out to purchase or utilize.
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Engravers come in all shapes and sizes, and are built to many different applications. Back in the old days, engravers would use handmade tools and many hours to carve into metal, stone, marble, glass, wood, and leather. These days both handmade and machine methods are used, and even though hand engraving is dying out, it still offers a much more personal and authentic touch than a engraver machine, however is much more time consuming and thus expensive.
Engraving has become a huge business opportunity, with the growing fad of personalizing everything from shot glasses to car parts to you name it. Investing in an Engraving Machine can be a very wise investment for any machine shop or any crafts business. Many machine shops are investing in these machines, and large corporations have been using them to mass-produce goods with their company trademark etched into them. Something that is etched signified it will last for a long time, and provides a higher worth onto the item. It is symbolic as much as aesthetic.
Here is a rundown of the different types of Engraving Machines:
Laser Engraving Machine
This is the most commonly used type of engraving tool, and has exploded with popularity over the past few years. If you go to any theme park or tourist attraction in the world, you will see 3D laser engraved souvenirs with everything from the Eiffel Tower to the Sea World Shamu etched into a 3D image inside of a crystal block or area.
Laser engravers are very sophisticated, and very precise. It leaves a very clean cut, with little to no cleaning having to be done after the etching process is finished. It is computer controlled and thus the possibility of human error is lowered significantly.
Also with a laser engraver there is the advantage of not having to replace parts nearly as often as with a manual engraver. Manual engravers use drills and bits, which wear down after time or sometimes break.
Manual Engraving Machines
A manual engraving tool may not be as clean-cut and efficient as a laser cutter, but it is better suited to a engraving task where a lot more material has to be cut away. A laser is usually only powerful enough to slightly "dig" into the surface, while a manual engraver will Wainlux laser engraver just cut away at it.
There are many different types of manual engraving machines, since these have been around for more than a century now. I remember in my machine shop we would have an engraving machine which has a rod connected to a template of different letters to choose from. Basically you would sort of have this pencil, trace over a letter with the pencil, and the corresponding rod would create a clone "pencil" that was actually a drill etching your every movement into whatever material you put into it. This is an example of a lower cost manual engraving machine.
CNC Engraving Machines
These are still very popular today and used by many machine shops. A lot of custom or personalized car parts use these machines. The great thing with CNC engraving machines is that you can take a 3D drawing from a CAD (Computer Aided Design) program and just plug it into the CNC machine, provide the raw material, and it will automatically etch out the part for you..
Engraving with a laser is actually a simple process. A laser is merely a tool. Laser can engrave most materials today. The most popular materials in the engraving fields are coated metals, wood, acrylic, glass, leather, marble, plastic, and a host of synthetic materials made specifically for lasers. Although it's confusing sometimes laser marking is referred to as laser etching. Unlike conventional etching, laser etching simply needs no masks or chemicals.
It was back in the early 1960's when scientists first discovered, that they could create a light source, focus the energy and have a tool powerful enough to affect certain materials. Laser marking is the favored marking method when permanency or aesthetics are needed. It didn't take very long for the engraving industry to notice lasers and soon lasers were being used for a wide variety of industrial applications including welding, heat-treating, etching and engraving.
If you think of a laser as a light source similar to a light bulb you'll know that a light bulb will emit energy out all around it. And the term laser etching is basically just another name for laser engraving.
The ability to laser cut complex profiles can eliminate the need for additional operations, making laser cutting very economical. And laser cutting offers a superior cut-edge quality with parallel sides and with no burrs. Laser cutting adds high precision, reduced contamination or warping, and a good quality finish to industrial cutting applications.
The laser metal cutting option can be added to some of the laser cutting machines. A laser works very well for the cutting of acrylic (Plexiglas), PETG, thin polycarbonates (Mylar), styrene expanded PVC (Sintra), wood, paper and fabric.
You can easily laser mark in batches of anything from 1 to 10,000. Co2 lasers can provide excellent results for the marking of glass and also provide significant reductions in operating costs and the cost of supplies. Laser marking is also preferred when the part to be marked is too small or has too complex of a shape to be marked with anything but laser etching.
The typical industries that use laser marking include the promotional, engineering and medical industries. To review, laser marking is a process in which material is indelibly marked at very fast speeds (milliseconds per character). The laser marking of glass by Co2 lasers on the fly or while moving can be an excellent addition today for many industrial environments and applications for glass marking.
Also you nay have seen some of the kiosks in malls and specialty stores for laser engraving services because it's now the most common type of engraving. Quite a few companies today make laser engraving machines, laser marking systems and laser etching equipment.
Laser engraving can be used for most of the jobs currently being carried out by the conventional industrial engravers. Of the many items being engraved by lasers today, iPods and laptops rank among the highest in the consumer marketplace. And the laser engraving of metal uses the most power especially if the metal is of the harder type.