Laser Etching

[soggybag]

The topic of etching enclosures comes up often. I ran into this a few weeks ago and thought I'd try out laser etching an enclosure. But, there doesn't seem to be any place where I can get it done in the Bay Area, which seems kinda crazy, you'd figure there would be a service around here?

http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2005/11/laser_etched_powerbook.html

[tiges_ tendres]

There is a place in San Carlos that does it.  But I can't remember the name!!

I once had a coworker that had a relative that worked there.

Dang it!

[Papa_lazerous]

You may encounter a few problems with the fact that its aluminium for starters, Where  work we have a 5 axis laser it can etch although is used to cut all sorts of fancy profiles out of bent steel and aluminium.  The thing is if you shine a nice pretty laser down on the aluminium it has a tendency to want to reflect back the way it came and cause very big problems to the machine and can be dangerous, I know when they laser cut Aluminium here they have to paint a liquid on that drys chalky white to stop this reflection which makes me think it wouldnt be feasable in an Aluminium enclosure for etching unless its just that our laser is very powerful and an etching one isnt who knows but its food for thought

[mdh]

Try searching for "laser engraving."  It seems to be a more commonly used term.  I've looked into it in the past as well, and (1) as Papa_lazerous mentioned, it seems that a lot of places don't do aluminum and (2) it didn't seem economical for one-offs.  But, of course, you can get your anodized aluminum iPod etched, and I recall seeing pictures of a paintball gun barrel on one of the website of a place in Sacramento.

Keep us posted if you find anything out!

[Pushtone]

anodizing companies often do laser engraving. I found the company we use under "coatings" in the yellow pages. Go figure. They anodize then engrave 19" rack panels for our custom installs. I send them an eps file of the customers logo and the control labels.

All I could find in the yellow pages under "engravers" were jewelery and trophy engravers. Let your fingers do the walking with "coatings and anodizing" as keywords. I'm sure there are more than a handful in the Bay area judging by how many are here in Western Canada.

[darron]

i've looked into it, and had it done!

the problem with engraving into aluminum is that you'd have to run the process about 3 times or more to get it deep enough to even fill... by then you've paid about $30, plus whatever costs there were for artwork setup.

below is after one run, not deep enough to fill:



however, get it anodized and then lasered and it looks pretty cool. like an industrial specifications plate: