With Illustrator, I have no idea. I have never made anything with Illustrator. Maybe someone else can chime in on that one. Pretty much any cad/cam package will do the trick. I've never used lazycam, but it would probably do just fine.

This little fella has been laser etched into some 6mm acrylic using the Mach Impact/Laser Engraver plugin. Glass would also work just as well but getting the power level /feedrate just right has to be done by trial and error (get it wrong and the glass may crack).
As with all clear acrylic this type of etching displays best against a dark background but good results can also be achieved by edge lighting, perhaps with LED's ?.

Just thought you might like to see the picture. 

Tweakie.

A good looking one, Tweakie.

How does this etching work? How does it produce the required shade? Doesn't it just melt the acrylic?

Think you can do 3D shapes in a glass cube like those sold in souvenir shops? That would be lovely. But then you need to focus the laser at different heights -  can you do this?

Dan

Hi Dan,

How does this etching work? How does it produce the required shade? Doesn't it just melt the acrylic?

The laser doesn't actually melt the acrylic, the focal point is far too hot for that, it vaporizes it. There is no residue or melted stuff, and the vapor just gets sucked out by my extraction system.
The image itself is generated from a raster scan with the laser being switched on and off as necessary (bit like an inkjet printer I suppose but just one line at a time). This is bit of a painstaking process for my machine because the mass of the combined X and Z axis is such that my maximum, reliable G1 feedrate is only 4000 mm / min. and with a line increment of 0.015 mm it took some time to complete.

Think you can do 3D shapes in a glass cube like those sold in souvenir shops? That would be lovely. But then you need to focus the laser at different heights -  can you do this?

No can't do this. The wavelength of my laser is 10.6 microns and that treats almost all stuff that we see as being transparent as opaque and dumps its energy on the surface. (Different wavelength lasers each see materials differently).

Hope this answers your questions,

Tweakie.

Hi Dan,

When I re-read my previous posting I had missed out something which may be of interest.

Not all materials will change from a solid to a gas without going through the liquid state it is called 'sublimation' some things do it at room temperature (dry-ice and mothballs both miss out the liquid state) but acrylic needs a laser  .

Tweakie.

Tweakie,

Thanks for taking the time to explain it.

Dan

How long did it take for that one? I wonder what the effect would be if the side light was a blacklight. Might be interesting.

Hi Sam,

I don't know just how long it took because I was busy doing something else and when I returned it had finished. Probably 1 to 1.5 hours.
Incidentally I made a mistake in the previous posting the vertical increment was 0.15 mm (if it was 0.015 it would still be running  ).

I can't try any lighting effects with this one as it has now been fitted as a replacement for a cat flap. 
I will make another similar and try different lighting effects and post the results.

Tweakie.

I am still awaiting the delivery of the power supply, so I can try it out, but this baby could spell the makings of a whole new machine.

Tweakie.

What's the power of this one?

Dan