"Laser printing" on anything (plastic) with a blue laser

[@Jason-Kaczor]

Uh - I would suggest using more PPE when handling raw toner. My grandfather started a "laser toner refill" business in the late 80's and was always "cavalier" about protection. He ended-up passing away early due to complications from CPOD. The doctors felt that it was most likely caused by his miss-handling of the fine toner particulates. He was not a smoker, so - this was his only exposure to "industrial type" materials. Just sayin' - you do you - myself - I would be wearing some gloves and some sort of mask and not rubbing toner directly on my fingers.

[@ronnetgrazer362]

- fix/align workpiece to bed - laser engrave it to create lower areas - mix toner with alcohol/water to a paste (no more particulates) - squidgy paste into engraved design - second laser pass melts toner - rinse off excess toner ?

[@kyatto7708]

Comming from a CNC Operator, i admire your efforts in making your own little slicer script, thought considering you already have a laser on a pretty decent axises i'd probably take advantage of them and removing the return path to the one side, and go on with etching in the opposite direction too instead of wasting that movement to increase your production speed. Also i love the fact that we can use laser toner like this, we actually did a bit similar consept at a company i worked at however your method in terms of applying it is bit different, as yours has an advantage to uneven surfaces, as we actually had a huge printer print on sheets of plastic in various colors that we'd applied M3 adhesive on back side & etched the applied color away leaving us with the plastic color for the text color. (white plastic & black toner for black with white text) these ended up being nameplates on mailboxes.

[@TimoNoko]

This might be quite precise method of toner transfer for etching printed circuits.

[@pdrg]

Good use of waste toner if your printer dumps it

[@MakenModify]

Hehe nice to see people actually using this technique 😀 good video. Btw you can also use powder coating powder to have more color choice😉

[@alnwlsn]

No way, it's the original OP! Do you still use the keycaps you labeled in your video? I am curious to know how they have held up over time. The keyboard I showed here was for a retrocomputing project and doesn't see a lot of use.

[@MakenModify]

@@alnwlsn not any more, but I used almost 2 years. The keys that saw the most use faded a bit but only on the surface. In general it held up surprisingly well. Today I would most likely try diy dye sub for keycaps but that only works with some plastics. I never tried this with a 3D print, nice to see that it worked for you :D

[@Liberty4Ever]

Electrostatics would make the toner application process much easier/better, although for a small job it may be more hassle than it's worth. You could use a powder coating gun, which is also nice to have for powder coating. Powder coat might work well in place of toner although it probably has a slightly larger particle size? 3D printer companies make 5-20 watt open frame desktop diode lasers that can raster print images much faster. You could make a small run of laser engraved enclosures or other plastic products and the laser process would take about as long as you'd need to spray electrostatic toner and use a HEPA filter vacuum to clean it off after lasing (or run the shop vac exhaust outside).

[@dl5244]

yes, there's lots of videos showing using colored powdered paint and a laser engraver

[@drdca8263]

Wait, printer toner is ABS microplastics??

[@tezinho81]

Damn, I know! I was a printer engineer many years ago and I never actually knew that. God knows how much of that crap I inhaled. My former brother in law was a copier engineer and he used to get multicoloured bogies... Ffs

[@alnwlsn]

Sorry you had to find out this way! But yeah, check the MSDS and a lot of them are 70-90% Styrene-Acrylate copolymer (so I guess that would technically be ASA). I've also seen Polyester in there. You can also get a hint if it's ABS/ASA if acetone dissolves it.

[@taurruth]

I used nitro or acetone to transfer toner from paper to plastics or metal to make labels. Had no idea that it worked because it was plastic.

[@THEOGGUNSHOW]

​@@taurruth Cool idea

[@Mattdotnfo]

Extremely Fascinating video as always man.

[@Drew_Summerfield]

Clever idea, I have done something similar with Powdercoat paint, but could never use it on plastics because the melting point of Powdercoat paint is just too high for the plastics to be happy.

[@8bitvelociraptor]

Really cool technique. Thanks for sharing!

[@MatroxMillennium]

I've thought about trying this but wasn't convinced it would work this well. Glad to see I was wrong!

[@RestoreTechnique]

This is awesome 😀

[@Harinair72]

Hi, how about spraying the plastic surface with hair styling spray and then coating with toner powder...an alcohol rub is all that is needed to remove the unwanted areas...

[@deimiKBC]

Very cool idea. Have you ever tried printing on a PCB with this method? I am thinking about using this instead of silkscreen

[@zhmtio]

Amazing work and a great idea. You have just unlocked a hole new chapter of ideas and projects i do to my 3d prints! Great work and thanks for sharing. Bty what was your laser power and speed that worked for you? If you don3mind sharing.

[@alnwlsn]

My laser is excessively customized (I use an old version of GRBL with some modifications - github.com/alnwlsn/grbl-Mega-5X-alnwlsn ), but for the yellow panel you see in the video it's about 20% PWM power at a feedrate of 600 mm/min. The laser's rated power is 5.5W, so I guess that would be about 1W of laser power. PWM frequency is 4KHz. You can probably get away with something a lot faster at higher power, but the CNC I used is designed for milling and has a low top speed.

[@zhmtio]

Thanks for sharing. I have a similar raser (5,5w) so I am willing to try soon 😁

[@notsurt]

I wonder if you could you 3D print a single layer in the label colour of choice, then place that single layer on top of the work piece and laser enough to melt the label markings to the surface, then run the laser at a higher power to separate the melted on label areas, then remove the scrap label material.

[@ataasgari]

I use the same technique but with CO2 laser, You'll get better and more uniform toner coverage by using something like barber's talc powder blower or DE (Diatomaceous Earth) Powder duster.

[@IndianTinker]

Interesting ! Thanks for sharing. The 3D printed lamp is cute. Any idea where I can check it out? Thanks

[@CoCoNutBob]

A CoCo 2 keyboard? Nice keycaps! I'm struggling with this issue currently.

[@tbriceno]

Not one single question about laser power settings?

[@TimoNoko]

It only 5W laser. Obviously doing full power.

[@rZERO_game]

i often make pcb using wet type UV photoresit ink , to do so i need to print layout of each physical coper layer on vellium paper/tracing paper,then daylight film exposed to create deep opeque. my printer is normal paper laser printer A4 mHP1020. but if i need more than A4 size of pcb then i have to go to onother person who have A3 size laser printer. as your video if if use trasing paper and toner spreading then i can print more than size of A4?

[@Kolgezen]

what power percentage are you appying

[@unmanaged]

have you tried this with color toner ? the make up is diffrent from black and ///

[@alnwlsn]

I've only ever used black since that's what I have, but around 18:45 this video shows some other colors: kzbin.info/www/bejne/gIOUc6qZe96YrrM Probably taken from the C/M/Y cartridges of a normal laser printer, but brighter colors (white, etc) are out there.

[@tezinho81]

@@alnwlsn you could do etches with multiple colours on the same piece by doing it in multiple passes, e.g. a warning ⚠️ triangle, for example

[@pixieloco]

need to try this, thanks.

[@ChandrashekarCN]

💖💖💖💖

[@unmanaged]

I am working on this trying to use 3d printer resin I found on a 405nm , spent 8.5 years as a copier tech and toner is dirty if you get it on you every day lol keep up the good work and great video! 🙂🚨🚨🚨🚥

[@mostafagaberahmed6657]

why just dissolve black powder in an acetone and spray it at all surface like black paint spray can , then use laser after acetone evaporate

[@Sir-Dexter]

nice