Hello,
My experience with laser engravers doesn’t go beyond my Ortur Laser Master 3 with a 10 watt diode laser.
I’ve been asked to cut the following badge out of 1mm aluminum, is there a machine available that can do this?
Thanks
As I understand it the Thunder lasers have a limited ability to etch metal. They cannot cut metal.
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To expand, CO2 lasers in general can remove organic coatings, and some non organic coatings from metals. (Powder coat, paints, and sometimes anodizing dyes) (and at DMS, subject to safety limits of the materials removed. No corrosive offgassing, no substantially toxic byproducts)
But they generally wont even etch the metal itself.
There exists a class of fiber laser, not powerful enough to cut metal, but specifically designed to etch metal.
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Thank you for the replies- that’s what I needed to know 
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Technically, when we cut metal here, we use our Dynatorch. However, I’m not that familiar with it, so I’m not sure if 1mm aluminum is too thin.
It’s a Metal Shop piece of equipment.
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I’ve cut thin aluminum on the plasma with a 45amp finecut nizzle by turning the power all the way down and increasing the travel speed by trial and error, but there was lots of dross to cleanup and corners are not sharp.
You would be better off having it laser cut.
Try sendcutsend.com you can get an instant quote
If you can live without cutting it you can buy laser etchable aluminum on Amazon and etch the black off to reveal aluminum.
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We can use the Dynatorch to cut as thin as 26 gauge, but from personal experience I wouldn’t go thinner than 1/8". If you are at 1mm I would recommend the metal brake or shears but I don’t mess with the torch when it comes to sheet metal. Max may have different thoughts.
This might be a job for the Shapeoko 3 XXL or other cnc machining tools. @keoliver or @jphelps might be able to provide some insight
That could be almost doable on the shapeoko/nomad machines, but secure workholding, material tear out and horrible edge burrs would be the problem with the honeycomb pattern in aluminum that thin. That is 100% a fiber laser job and we do not have one .send cut send is your friend for a job like that. It would likely be anodized or powder coated and then pad printed with the graphics . Possible vinyl masking could do the graphics with paint over paint or paint over powder coat .
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Before the Big Aerosol Can Ban, there was a material which can be sprayed onto aluminum and can be removed with the lasers. It was rather expensive though.
That stuff wasn’t banned though. Cermark
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