Is it safe to cut pva and neoprene in the lasercutter?

[Simon Howes]

Hi peeps,

Material question here - are pva and neoprene rubber safe to cut in the lasercutter? I want to cut some material that is pva (wood glued) to some other material, and I want to do this... for reasons.

I've been cutting neoprene in my cutter at home for some time and it doesn't seem to have killed the machine but I've read conflicting reports. Also the hard rubber neoprene really chars. It certainly blackens my lenses fast.

Finally, does pva have er...chlorine in it?

Thanks again peeps!

[CorpoWombat]

No, it doesn't. It's an alcohol polymer. It's not gonna smell like roses but it's unlikely to kill you.

As for neoprene... for one, it's a polymer of 2-chlorobutadiene, if I remember my high school chemistry correctly. In which case you ideally shouldn't laser cut it, lest you desire your home-made Bhopal disaster (yes, I know, different chemicals). As for charring, it often depends very much on the particular material, including contaminants, e.g. how charring leather is when laser-cut largely depends on how it's been treated. I keep a test pattern on my dropbox and before cutting a new material, I usually run it. It's literally tiny, and of course I'm watching like an eagle with a hand (wing?) on the scram button.

[Alexander Wright]

PVA might be ok - you'll need confirmation from someone else though.
Neoprene is a chloropolymer though and is an absolute no no.

-
Alec

[Sam Kelly]

I've cut quite a few pieces glued with pva before, and it's fine. No chlorine.

[Simon Howes]

ack. One wikipedia visit later and hurr hurr you guys are all right. There's definately chlorine in neoprene. Scarily my neoprene gave a false negative when I did the copper rod green flame test, eek!

I've actually lasered a fair bit of neoprene on my home lasercutter - I usually had to clean my optics after as they were really blacked up by it. It didn't smell too much of chlorine though is this maybe because neoprene has much less chlorine than pvc?

Anyway, I wont laser that anymore. Fffufffufffwoups.

Butastyrene rubber seems kosher so I shall use that instead!
Carry on bros, carry on

(I have a big roll of black neoprene 3mm rubber sheet if the hoxtspaec wants it?)

[Peter "Sci" Turpin]

Got a rough dimension of the roll? IIRC Neoprene makes good vacuum gaskets.

On 10/12/2012 22:23, Simon Howes wrote:
> ack. One wikipedia visit later and hurr hurr you guys are all right.
> There's definately chlorine in neoprene. Scarily my neoprene gave a
> false negative when I did the copper rod green flame test, eek!
>
> I've actually lasered a fair bit of neoprene on my home lasercutter - I
> usually had to clean my optics after as they were really blacked up by
> it. It didn't smell too much of chlorine though is this maybe because
> neoprene has much less chlorine than pvc?
>
> Anyway, I wont laser that anymore. Fffufffufffwoups.
>
> Butastyrene rubber seems kosher so I shall use that instead!
> Carry on bros, carry on
>
> (I have a big roll of black neoprene 3mm rubber sheet if the hoxtspaec
> wants it?)
>
> On Dec 9, 2012 12:11 PM, "Sam Kelly" <s...@eithin.co.uk

> <mailto:s...@eithin.co.uk>> wrote:
>
> I've cut quite a few pieces glued with pva before, and it's fine. No
> chlorine.
>
> On Dec 9, 2012 12:08 PM, "Alexander Wright" <ale...@gmail.com

[Simon Howes]

Hey bros,

If you want I can drop a 1x1m section of it at the hoxt.
I was previously making some food grade white neoprene gaskets for another endeavour with 'prene. White stuff from rs.

Happy to drop it off
I miss you gais
not been in the hoxtspaec in a while

(Jesus, my spelling is amazing)
xxx

[stephane Malenfant]

Hi Simon,

If you have some spare neoprene left I'd love some. Need to make some belts to fit radio packs on actors... I basically need strips of 100*8 cm.

Let me know

Thanks

Stephane

[Simon Howes]

I'll drop the neoprene off in the coming weeks.

Further on my is it safe to cut x in a lasercutter.... is it safe to cut polycarbonate? It don't contain chlorine but it is made from phosgene and bisphenol... it does in fact cut in my home lasercutter without gunking up the lens too much, but the thick horrid orange/brown smoke that comes off is terrifying.

Not much online about cutting this....
Er. Should I very *definately* not be cutting it? Will it decompose under the laser back into the original components or is that unlikely?

Kthanksbai!
xxx

[Russ Garrett]

Polycarbonate is a bit nasty, but it's fine to laser-cut. I have cut
it in the space's machine before. I don't think it cuts quite as
cleanly as acrylic though.

--
Russ Garrett
ru...@garrett.co.uk

[Charles Yarnold]

Yup, doesn't cut the nicest, but does mean you can lasercut the shell for battle ready robots.

[Billy]

http://www.polycarbdirect.co.uk/shapes.php?id=39&color=

it's £1.22 per sheet, of laser-cutter bed-size.

On Dec 13, 3:56 pm, Charles Yarnold <charlesyarn...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Yup, doesn't cut the nicest, but does mean you can lasercut the shell for
> battle ready robots.
>

> On 13 December 2012 15:48, Russ Garrett <r...@garrett.co.uk> wrote:
>
>
>
> > Polycarbonate is a bit nasty, but it's fine to laser-cut. I have cut
> > it in the space's machine before. I don't think it cuts quite as
> > cleanly as acrylic though.
>

> > On 13 December 2012 15:35, Simon Howes <simonhowes...@googlemail.com>

> > wrote:
> > > I'll drop the neoprene off in the coming weeks.
>
> > > Further on my is it safe to cut x in a lasercutter.... is it safe to cut
> > > polycarbonate? It don't contain chlorine but it is made from phosgene and
> > > bisphenol... it does in fact cut in my home lasercutter without gunking
> > up
> > > the lens too much, but the thick horrid orange/brown smoke that comes
> > off is
> > > terrifying.
>
> > > Not much online about cutting this....
> > > Er. Should I very *definately* not be cutting it? Will it decompose under
> > > the laser back into the original components or is that unlikely?
>
> > > Kthanksbai!
> > > xxx
>
> > > On Dec 11, 2012 12:11 AM, "stephane Malenfant" <

> > stephanemalenf...@gmail.com>

> > > wrote:
>
> > >> Hi Simon,
>
> > >> If you have some spare neoprene left I'd love some. Need to make some
> > >> belts to fit radio packs on actors... I basically need strips of 100*8
> > cm.
>
> > >> Let me know
>
> > >> Thanks
>
> > >> Stephane
>

> > >> On Dec 10, 2012 11:44 PM, "Simon Howes" <simonhowes...@googlemail.com>

> > r...@garrett.co.uk

[Paddy Duncan]

I know it cuts kind of ok and there's no chlorine but..

The combustion products are pretty awful, and I for one certainly do not want to be anywhere near them.

As Bisphenol A is included, you may want to look up the effects, especially if you want to continue to want chicks.

Paddy

[Billy]

Hi, Chris.

Thanks for telling us that you didn't know about the mailing lists. We
get that occasionally.

The person you need to speak to is Charles Yarnold ( Solexious on
IRC). He's basically re-built the laser-cutter and still does most of
the maintenance.

It also might be worth chatting to folk on the infrastructure mailing
list. Whether we move to 445, osr somewhere different, we'll still
need to install proper extraction for any of the processes we're going
to use...

You'll find more information about the mailing lists here,
http://wiki.london.hackspace.org.uk/view/Mailing_lists

Also, if you might want to have a look here,
http://wiki.london.hackspace.org.uk/view/GettingStarted , in case
there's anything else you've missed.

On Dec 14, 8:36 am, chrisbob12 <chrisbo...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Hi, I've only just learnt that you can now get CO2 laser tubes for chump
> change and pretty cheap laser engravers; so interesting to pick up this
> thread so soon.
>
> I've had some experience with laser-cutting in an industrial context (long,
> long ago and far, far away). Even in the 90s there was concern about the
> by-products from laser-cutting, due to the nature of the chemistry (not
> combustion, but plenty of energy to stimulate exotic reactions). Extraction
> is your friend here: get a tube by the head and have a motor set on suck. A
> baby vacuum cleaner will do the minimum just fine. Keeps the optics clean
> for *much* longer, and saves you risking the alignment by cleaning them. If
> you need to let air in to enable good air flow, then put some filter
> material in the inlet.
>
> Regarding the chemicals that come out: either you take a punt that there's
> not enough carcinogenic/mutagenic species going down your airways to
> trigger a difference, or you direct the extracted gases through a charcoal
> filter, or out of the window to finish off the birds and bees. Rule of
> thumb: if you can smell it, it's probably a bad thing.
>
> Regards, Chris.
>
> I'm new on the mailing lists, thought I've subscribed to Hackspace for the
> last year, but haven't been in more than once. Only just discovered the
> mailing lists too.

[Chris Brasted]

Thanks, I shall follow up.