Brilliance Laser Inks with diode lasers - engraving (marking) steel, aluminum, brass, copper

Black Metal Laser Spray by Brilliance Laser Inks is an aerosol spray designed for marking metals in combination with CO2 and fiber lasers. Nowadays diode lasers become very strong, so I wanted to find out what can we do with 5W or 10W diode lasers too. Tested materials: stainless steel, regular steel, aluminum, brass and copper.

Product from the video:

Microscope used in the video:

Laser engravers from this video:

Final settings used in this video:
With every setting: S1000 (max power), M3 (constant power). 14 Lines/mm (started with 12), Speed variate.

5W (TTS-55)
Stainless steel: 1600 mm/min
Alu, Brass, Copper - marking not permanent

10W (Atomstack P9)
Stainless steel: 1600 mm/min
Regular steel: 800 mm/min
Alu: 100 mm/min (marking strong, but black color visible on scratching object)
Brass: 400 mm/min (marking looks very durable on 2 days test, but scratchable with sharp object)
Copper: 200 mm/min marking strong but it's coming down if scratched.

Contents
0:00 Introduction
1:36 Tested materials
2:02 Possibility of diode lasers
2:46 Preparing the engraving
4:16 5W on stainless steel
6:43 5W on aluminum
8:40 5W on brass
10:15 5W on copper
10:55 Moving to 10W laser
11:05 10W on stainless steel
11:49 10W on aluminum
13:23 10W on brass
15:17 10W on copper
16:35 10W on regular steel
17:55 Under the microscope
18:51 Conclusions

#brillianceinks #laserengraving #diodelaser

[dScience_uk]

THIS IS THE MOST USEFULL VIDEO ABOUT CHEAP 5W->10WATTS LASERS ENGRAVING METALS.
well done!!!!

[RockYourBrand]

I am just about to get my first laser engraver (20W) and this video has been very useful. Thank you.

[alcavil]

bro this video was SUPER helpfully to choose my engraving machine!

thanks!!!!

[jbrewer]

I just used the spray with my F1 10W blue light diode laser as well as the 2W IR laser on non-anodized brass sheet metal with excellent results. The 2W IR laser was able to cut into the metal as well for a pretty cool effect. Thank you for sharing. Your video was very helpful.

[williambarndt]

Great video! I purchased the Liquid Ready Brilliance Laser Ink and had great success with the laser on stainless steel disks. I'm using a Creality 10w diode at 80% power and 40mm. Any more power caused the stainless steel disks to warp yet the ink didn't get any darker. I probably could have turned the power down further and still would have had the same result. I am unable to scratch the ink off of the stainless!

[newmonengineering]

you can try powder coating. the powder coating paint is a dust, you can get a small bottle of it cheap. dust the material with it and use the laser to harden it onto the surface. normally it is baked on in an over but I tested it on a laser and it works. this powder coat paint is way cheaper but I'm not sure the durability maybe you could try this method out? I used black from harborfreight and it seemed to work on a co2 laser but I think a diode laser should be able to do it as well. just a suggestion to try if you are so inclined

[morganmcgary]

I just got a new 40w diode laser and I was looking at some of these dyes (this specific one in fact as one of them) to help get rid of the reflectivity in particular during engraving. This should work quite nicely on coin blanks I bought on Amazon. I hope to do relief engraving into the metal soon but I think that will require an infrared laser. Great job and thanks for sharing.

[AKrn]

My best results have been engraving the image on paint as a resist to etching with ferric chloride on a cotton swab and a power supply. Salt might work, too. You can get a deep etch in stainless steel.

[mastermaker]

Surface structure is likely to make a huge difference.

A machined/turned surface may look and feel perfectly smooth but it is actually a fairly rough surface with lots of microscopic peaks and valleys and those peak high-points are likely to be a lot more vulnerable when it comes to rubbing of the engraved surface on them.

Good chance you will get a better result on the machined surfaces if you wet/dry sand and polish them first to get a more uniform and even/flat surface...

[levieux]

I've been making many tests with paint, permanent markers etc. This one looks awesome. I think it would work well on glass. If you note well, the more the metal conducts heat, the less it marks. That's understandable, because the metal keeps the product cool. Maybe pre-heating the metal or placing it on a heating plate during engraving would help for copper. I'm also intersted in seeing if that helps to make PCBs.

[Bo_Hazem]

What a wonderful, thorough test! Thanks a lot for all the effort.

[shadyb]

YAG lasers are lasers that use Yttrium-Alumimium oxide crystals as laser medium which emit in upper side of visible spectrum and in infrared

[michaelquinto]

Just the video I was looking for, thanks!

[randybranson]

Interesting that that the speed didn’t seem to matter much. I try to avoid using more than 80% power on any engraving to save laser lens life. I’ve used Brilliance on steel sheet and and found no difference between 400-600 mm/m at 70, 75, 80 % power using a 20W Atezr.

I also tried black primer paint and result was nothing once cleaned. Also trying Tempera paint but suspect the same results.

Brilliance works, so I’ll stick to it. Also cleanup is so easy. It’s just pricey so it’s used sparingly.

[joshsekel]

I can't wait until you receive a 20w for testing. I think the 20w modules are where diode lasers finally start to compete with CO2 lasers for many tasks.

Very interesting, thank you for the video. I will soon get myself a machine for myself and this helps in knowing capabilities 👍👍

[bato]

I see that it has been a year since the video was published, but I see that you were at Silver Lake, I hope you had a good time and that you will come again. Greetings from Serbia

[forrestgumpv]

I have a XTOOL D1 10 WATT LASER. It will mark Stainless Steel very good with CRC Dry Graphite Lube for $12.0 a can.
I spray 3 light coats, let dry between coats. ONE PASS, Laser power at 100 % and speed at 300 mm/minute. WORKS GREAT !! CHEAP TOO.

[chucklenz]

Try burning a wax candle and inverting the knife over the candle flame about 1 &1/2 mm over the flame which should give you a flat black surface in which to use the laser engraver in the blackened area.

[joshsekel]

For the metals that the engraving scratched off of, I wonder how much a thin clear coat would help with durability. It should also help protect them from oxidization.