Laser Etching Chips? (1 Viewer)

[David O]

I know there was a vendor that laser engraved chips. Has anybody seen any of the work and if it works? I am intrigued by this and wanted to see some finished products.

I was wondering because if it works good the new Glowforge printer may be worth the money. Go check it out at https://glowforge.com/

Right now it kind of high in price and would be hard to achieve a decent ROI but once the newness wears off it may be worth it.

David O

 

[Mental Nomad]

I'm in on a Glowforge group buy, and will be doing some sample testing when it arrives, for sure.

Not likely to receive it until Summer 2016, though...

 

[David O]

which one did you get? The smaller or larger on?

Also please share your thoughts when you try it out.

David

 

[Mental Nomad]

My group went in on the entry-level unit, but I also know someone who got the top-end, in case I want to play with cutting or engraving something longer than 20".

My group's purchased happened on Oct 23, at the end of the presale, so it will be a lot wait. My questions are likely to be answered long ahead of receipt. I'm liable to send chips to an earlier Forger if they're willing to experiment for me.

 

[David O]

It will be interesting to see how it does on chips. I am sure it does not apply a color like some of the very expensive high end laser. My thought on making it look more like a hot stamp was to mask it with some kind of tape, etch and then hit it with a quick spray or brush of paint. Let dry and pull the tape. The tape may also help in not melting some chips. Let me know when you get yours and how it does.

 

[joepro]

I just saw an ad for Glowforge, I immediately thought of laser etching chips and dealer buttons, I started to post a new thread, and this one came up. I want to know if @Mental Nomad or anyone has tested these on poker chips. It seems like it would work, but I don't want to spend $3k plus to test it out on chips. I think it could possibly be used for milling and that could be a game changer. Here is the demo video from their website:

https://glowforge.com/

How is Glowforge different from a 3D printer?​

Glowforge uses subtractive manufacturing while traditional 3D printers use additive manufacturing. A 3D printer builds up material, like plastic filament, layer by layer. With Glowforge, you’ll put a piece of material like leather, wood, or acrylic in the machine and it carves out your product using laser light. The technical name for the category of tools that includes Glowforge is a CNC laser cutter engraver, but that's a mouthful, so we call it a 3D laser printer.

 

[joepro]

BUMP! Come on people, don't you see the potential here!! (I'm guessing from the bump of a 5 year old thread that the machine does not work on poker chips, but looking for evidence.)

 

[CrazyEddie]

There have definitely been laser-etched chips in the past. When "faux clays" were a big deal (this was quite a while ago) several people got theirs etched. This google search turns up some useful and relevant threads: https://www.google.com/search?q=site:pokerchipforum.com+laser+etch

I don't know if anyone knows how well the Glowforge, specifically, works for etching chips. @Mental Nomad mentioned two years ago that he has a Glowforge.

There are lots of cheaper alternatives to the Glowforge, although they require more diy work to set up and use. No idea if anyone has used them for poker chips either. A few other people in those threads have mentioned they have some sort of etching capability: @T_Chan @Amish Rabbi @LeGold @stonker @PokerChipsDesign

I haven't tried it, but I bet any local shop that advertises laser etching could etch poker chips just fine. They do stuff like trophies and plaques and wedding souvenirs and so forth. They should be easy to find.

If you try any of these, post back here and let us all know how it worked out!

 

[joepro]

The guy that did mine was the guy who did a lot of sets of Faux clays about 10 years ago. I used to call him monthly to add on to my set, but he basically said that he doesn't use the machine any more...although he said it's worth twenty thousand dollars!

 

[joepro]

The guy that did mine was the guy who did a lot of sets of Faux clays about 10 years ago. I used to call him monthly to add on to my set, but he basically said that he doesn't use the machine any more...although he said it's worth twenty thousand dollars!

 

[LeGold]

I do rotary CNC engraving, not laser (yet). Afterwards there's manual painting in the grooves... however, when trying the latter on a CPC chip, the paint left some permanent residue even on the parts where the paint was removed, which I didn't fancy.

 

[Mental Nomad]

I never did try etching ceramics or clays when I had the machine; it rotated among several of us who bought it together, but was in the hands of one of us who was schoolteacher who brought it to her lab and it ended up "trapped" in the lockdown.

I haven't tried to get my hands back on it for my next rotation, but when I do, I'll give chip etching a try. It may be a long time before I get it again.

 

[T_Chan]

My laser engraver is a small scale device, more of a hobby machine which I mainly use to "brand" my tables. I also doubt it's accurate enough to do chips. Sounds like a fun project though.

 

[Mental Nomad]

On thinking about it, I think it's a bad idea to try to do laser milling.

Etching a written pattern is pretty quick, because the laser head runs like a plotter; it draws the lines.

Milling requires blasting out a whole area; when you do that, it resorts to going back and forth like a dot matrix printer making a raster image. It takes a long time, on top of the problem of all the fumes of burning those plastic inserts. If the inserts are mostly paper, it won't be as bad... but:

When you mill with a chisel, you can overbore the insert and get a nice clean edge. With the laser, you can't have any overage. You'll very like need different levels of laser power to burn down chip vs burn down insert. And the bottom of the bed will be irregular, not flat... I don't think labels will adhere well afterwards.

TL;DR: etching art or lettering onto chips is probably fine. Laser milling is probably not going to work.