Neoprene Foam?

[jinu117]

I am trying to cut it and having hardest time ever -_-; (1/8 inches and 1/4 inches)
Not sure what I am doing wrong but if I go too slow it will flame up, if I go too fast, it will not cut through.
Also, when it burns off, it gives sooth out around which I is not easy to clean up and sometimes can get close to the lesnes.
How do you guys do it?

[MacGyver]

Is your focusing lens properly adjusted? What's your focal length?

[jinu117]

How do I do that?
When I cut plexi about 1/2" thick and look at it, I do see a little bit of taper unfortunately so I think it might not be precisely focused. But I am at loss on how to do it right.

PS) I really don't want to say this but the support from initial shipment of item and purchasing from wklaser has been excellent but as of last few days, I haven't gotten single response back from Jack. If you still visit the site Jack, I would appreciate any help you can lender. The documentation while being decent doesn't have enough pictures and details for end users to just go and do things as instructed. It would be nice to have more detailed documentation of what need to be done.

[bisjoe]

Originally Posted by jinu117 How do I do that? When I cut plexi about 1/2" thick and look at it, I do see a little bit of taper unfortunately so I think it might not be precisely focused. But I am at loss on how to do it right.

That's normal, the thicker the material the more slanted the cut. It has to do with the shape of the beam, and the more of it hitting the top than the bottom.

Neoprene is one of those materials that is not going to cut as smoothly as others. I'd suggest two passes. Do the first with the setting that you did that didn't cut all the way through. Then refocus to about 1/2 way down into the material (set 1/8" closer on 1/4" foam) and run again with the same settings.
If that still doesn't cut through make a 3rd pass.

[MacGyver]

I wouldn't expect much after-purchase support (if you get ANY I would be surprised). That seems to be the downfall of the Chinese laser manufacturers... they're happy to take you money and talk a good talk, but once the system has left their building you might as well drop off the face of the Earth.

[techwoman57]

Much better to use a waterjet to cut neoprene. Thin stuff can be cut with water only.

[jinu117]

Well first month or so they were pretty responsive. Up until very recently. Since I did have very good amount of interest in their offering (was looking at their router table) this kind of puts me off from going further with them on business end. Not a bad product I have here for the price anyways but things definitely could have helped them even more if they just understand concept of repeat business, customer referral.
Once it becomes time for this machine to hit the sack, I doubt I will be going back to them for repeat order, etc at this point :P But for budget and first timer, it really isn't bad at all (of course, this might change if I keep not hearing back from them)
As for focusing of lense, what am I supposed to do? I got everything centered straight down on all mirrors (did see improvement on power a lot and now I have to readjust all settings...) but I think the beam can be even smaller and more concentrated if "focused" right... just not sure what to do.

[jinu117]

Maybe this will help some seasoned people to know what I am dealing with After adjustment I could cut neoprene foam. Albeit with bit too much burn on side which I didn't like. I've seen professionally done one before and I think I still need some adjustment especially on focus.
Below are pictures of it. It does excellent job cutting plexi, okay job on engraving (it probably is more of me not getting right amount of power/photo editing), cutting wood, etc. But neoprene seems to be hard one to get done right for me still.
I am wondering if vacuum hold down would help reduing some of these burnt neoprene off of rest of my system by sucking it out as well as making it easier to put something like neoprene foam instead of using masking tape.