Looking for metal equipment tag supplier

[GAC05]

Does anyone have a good line on these?
I have a request for 1000 serialized aluminum tags. 2 color (red background with white text).
I'm unsure how that would work if they want the letters embossed/punched like a dog tag. If they don't, I'm thinking of cast laminated print on an aluminum backer plate, that I could do in-house.
Ideas?

Wayne

 

[CanuckSigns]

a laser engraving shop could do these easily out of red annodized aluminum, when engraved the text comes out white. If you can't find anyone I could do them but i'm sure there is someone closer.

 

[ikarasu]

Yeah, Im thinking they just want anodized aluminum / thats been lasered... Pretty standard, and lasts a lot longer than a print does. We do thousands of them for an oil company who needs to tag their flanges and have them last... ours are out of steel though. A fiber laser makes quick work out of them.

Not something I'd sell or are offering to take on (Take Canuck up on his offer if you cant find local!) as I just do it for a hobby / to play with.


I'm the onlyone at my company with blue metalic business cards... They made me buy my own laser to play with, so no free cards for them! I bought thousands of decently thick anodized aluminum to learn on.... Comes in many colors, isnt too expensive... and works great for so many things. I got it down to about 5 seconds a card - and it's a hairline laser, so barcodes / fine details work great.


https://photos.app.goo.gl/hp39LPsqNkusrNsJA - If you watch the video... make sure to turn on the sound, main reason I bought a fiber laser

 

[CanuckSigns]

Yeah, Im thinking they just want anodized aluminum / thats been lasered... Pretty standard, and lasts a lot longer than a print does. We do thousands of them for an oil company who needs to tag their flanges and have them last... ours are out of steel though. A fiber laser makes quick work out of them.

Not something I'd sell or are offering to take on (Take Canuck up on his offer if you cant find local!) as I just do it for a hobby / to play with.


I'm the onlyone at my company with blue metalic business cards... They made me buy my own laser to play with, so no free cards for them! I bought thousands of decently thick anodized aluminum to learn on.... Comes in many colors, isnt too expensive... and works great for so many things. I got it down to about 5 seconds a card - and it's a hairline laser, so barcodes / fine details work great.


https://photos.app.goo.gl/hp39LPsqNkusrNsJA - If you watch the video... make sure to turn on the sound, main reason I bought a fiber laser

It really is the best sound isn't it

New video by Watsons Engraving

photos.app.goo.gl

 

[ikarasu]

It really is the best sound isn't it

New video by Watsons Engraving

photos.app.goo.gl

It is. I've done some 2 hour 3d coins just to hear the background noise!

Is that your laser? Do you use trotec for your fiber as well?

I bought a 60watt mopa to do stainless steel, but even though it does a nice a black I find it takes longer to do a deep black vs using cermark / loading 50 tags on a jig and doing them via co2...

It's just another toy for me to play with though! I "outsource" all of my companies work to myself - paid for the laser in less than 6 months. Liked it, so I bought the fiber - both are just Toy's though.... I've never tried to sell locally or online, just what my work needs.

 

[CanuckSigns]

It is. I've done some 2 hour 3d coins just to hear the background noise!

Is that your laser? Do you use trotec for your fiber as well?

I bought a 60watt mopa to do stainless steel, but even though it does a nice a black I find it takes longer to do a deep black vs using cermark / loading 50 tags on a jig and doing them via co2...

It's just another toy for me to play with though! I "outsource" all of my companies work to myself - paid for the laser in less than 6 months. Liked it, so I bought the fiber - both are just Toy's though.... I've never tried to sell locally or online, just what my work needs.

No this fiber is a "Mactron" 50watt non MOPA we bought directly from the manufacturer in China, it's an amazing machine, especially since light burn now supports it.

As for cable tags, look into rotary jigs like this:

It makes marking much faster, I can do a 2" round stainless cable tag in around 2 minutes, which is a bit slower than cermark, but the mark is blacker, and there is no application or cleaning time and cermark is expensive, especially with employees applying it on super thick (I've had to explain to an employee that they just used $40 worth of cermark on 10 tags I sell for $5 each...)

 

[ikarasu]

Yup, first thing I looked for was Lightburn compatibility. Same with the C02... I did a lot of research before buying both my machines. Lightburn is a bit glitchy... at least on mine, If you move the engraving while it's showing the mark more than a dozen times itll lock up sometimes... but other than that, it's been perfect.

I have a rotary like that, And its how I justified buying myself a 30" x 30" 3D printer so I can print my own jigs / test them out, before I CNC true jigs at work.... I havent hooked it up yet... or the rotary for my Co2... It's on my to do list.

I do 3" x 4" Tags - I think it takes about 5 mins on my fiber... Where as on my laser I can load 70 at a time and it takes about 1 hour to do all 70, with no interaction from me... Just load them, hit go, then watch TV in the room for an hour to make sure it doesnt burn my house down.

Takes about... 5 minutes to spray a sheet of 70, 10 mins to rinse them off. So roughly an hour and a half for 70 VS almost 6 hours on the fiber... I did buy the fiber mainly for these tags, and Honestly I've played with it for maybe an hour since I've had it... so I'm sure I can tweak my settings - But the black looks different... I'd say it looks better, more black - but also its shiny compared to the sprays. Since it was a job I'm taking over from the other company, I had to match the look of the old tags as well... and the laser spray matches it perfectly.

So theres a few reasons I use The spray VS fiber... main one being lazy and too busy to learn how to do it quickly! It's thick 16 gauge stainless, And I only had 10 spares to play with and do tests on.... so I ran out of material. I have 1000 of them upcoming that I have to do, and I bought 100 extra just for playing with...so maybe I'll try the fiber again.



I use brilliance powder mostly, instead of ceramark - Ceramark was better since it sticks... You can spray 100 items and stack them and it'll hold up fine. The brilliance wipes off with your finger or a cloth...so you have to spray right before you drop them in. But you can buy 250 Grams for $100 CAD on sale, Mix it with some rubbing alcohol and use a Youcan - https://paintspot.ca/art-supplies/s...-paints/jacquard-youcan-refillable-spray-can/ $40, you re-pressurize it with your air compressor.... And 1 tub of 250gram fills it up at least 5 times...so it's like paying $20 a can VS the $165 trotec charges. I find the brilliance to be a deeper black too... AND while it not sticking is a pain if you want to pre-paint 100 items, it also makes it wash off way easier. Thinner application, and cheap - So if your employees slather it on, its not too bad

 

[CanuckSigns]

Yup, first thing I looked for was Lightburn compatibility. Same with the C02... I did a lot of research before buying both my machines. Lightburn is a bit glitchy... at least on mine, If you move the engraving while it's showing the mark more than a dozen times itll lock up sometimes... but other than that, it's been perfect.

I have a rotary like that, And its how I justified buying myself a 30" x 30" 3D printer so I can print my own jigs / test them out, before I CNC true jigs at work.... I havent hooked it up yet... or the rotary for my Co2... It's on my to do list.

I do 3" x 4" Tags - I think it takes about 5 mins on my fiber... Where as on my laser I can load 70 at a time and it takes about 1 hour to do all 70, with no interaction from me... Just load them, hit go, then watch TV in the room for an hour to make sure it doesnt burn my house down.

Takes about... 5 minutes to spray a sheet of 70, 10 mins to rinse them off. So roughly an hour and a half for 70 VS almost 6 hours on the fiber... I did buy the fiber mainly for these tags, and Honestly I've played with it for maybe an hour since I've had it... so I'm sure I can tweak my settings - But the black looks different... I'd say it looks better, more black - but also its shiny compared to the sprays. Since it was a job I'm taking over from the other company, I had to match the look of the old tags as well... and the laser spray matches it perfectly.

So theres a few reasons I use The spray VS fiber... main one being lazy and too busy to learn how to do it quickly! It's thick 16 gauge stainless, And I only had 10 spares to play with and do tests on.... so I ran out of material. I have 1000 of them upcoming that I have to do, and I bought 100 extra just for playing with...so maybe I'll try the fiber again.



I use brilliance powder mostly, instead of ceramark - Ceramark was better since it sticks... You can spray 100 items and stack them and it'll hold up fine. The brilliance wipes off with your finger or a cloth...so you have to spray right before you drop them in. But you can buy 250 Grams for $100 CAD on sale, Mix it with some rubbing alcohol and use a Youcan - https://paintspot.ca/art-supplies/s...-paints/jacquard-youcan-refillable-spray-can/ $40, you re-pressurize it with your air compressor.... And 1 tub of 250gram fills it up at least 5 times...so it's like paying $20 a can VS the $165 trotec charges. I find the brilliance to be a deeper black too... AND while it not sticking is a pain if you want to pre-paint 100 items, it also makes it wash off way easier. Thinner application, and cheap - So if your employees slather it on, its not too bad

All valid points, on larger stainless tags the spray method is faster, but keep in mind that cermark sprays are not considered a "permanant" mark for a lot of applications, we do work for military and they require either rotary engraved or annealed. I've had cermark tags fade in the sun after 2-3 years to the point they were hardly legible any more.

The fiber really shines on anodized aluminum as you know, 3 minutes on the c02 machine or 15 seconds on the fiber.

 

[ikarasu]

Not to keep derailing the thread...

Just finished my job of 500 tags. Ignore the crappy spray job on some of them...I remove the bad ones and re-spray., hence the row at the bottom - I do a quick throw them all into the jig, then I make sure they're all aligned, that there is spray in every part thats getting lasered, and swap out the bad ones for a re-paint.

Took 1.5 mins per to laser them with the spray - So a sheet of 55 took 82 minutes. 9 hours... Lets say 10 with spraying and washing as I did it while it was lasering... One of the benefits of a big bed, an hour and a half between cutting = spending 5 mins to wash + pack, then watch TV for an hour Where as on my Fiber, I could get maybe 10 on the rotary jig...

Fastest I could get it on my Fiber with a nice black was 6 mins per - Or 50 hours.... The deepest black, 16 minutes per. The fiber is a nicer engrave though, Much more crisp lines in the small text. But again...What theyre using them for, And the fact I have to have them look like what we were previously getting, I'm stuck with the spray method on this job anyways.

I have an extra 50 tags to play with though, so I'm going to use them to mess with the fiber more.... I don't like how the ceramark / brilliant turns out, it looks a little spotty in the bigger areas, and its not as sharp text as the fiber is.