Laser materials question flexible plastic

Is there a type of flexible plastic that can be cut on a laser?

Not a laser user so figured i would ask before going further.

Goal is something like this picture.

There is

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Thank you. That looks like it might work.

Yeah. Coke bottle plastic (PETG).

PETG should absolutely not be cut on the laser. It can decompose into cyanide

Edit: source see 5.2

I’m not saying you’re wrong; I don’t know enough chemistry to evaluate it. But, there seems to be a bit of contrary indications on the internet. See the links appended to this post. So either opinions differ, or maybe there’s a lot of ignorance in the laser-cutting community?

Anyway, this isn’t my particular issue at the moment so I’m not invested in being right or wrong. Whoever has to approve PETG or not for our lasers needs to reach his/her own conclusions.

Burning PETG can indeed release hydrogen cyanide.

So does burning wood, or paper, or your toast. Pretty much any biomass, in fact, will produce HCN upon burning.

It’s right up there with carbon monoxide and formaldehyde as items that:

  1. sound scary (and rightly so, at certain quantities),
  2. are byproducts of burning basically anything that was once alive or produced out of stuff that was once alive (so wood or toast just as readily as dead dinosaurs), and
  3. are very good reasons to not burn large things indoors and breathe the byproducts for extended periods of time (you may think I’m kidding, but industrial environments can often be literally this).

Of course, scale both of concentration and of time matters. So it’s basically whatever the governing authority of the thing you’re using says. At home, it can be the manufacturer recommendations. At DMS, it’s of course the committee chair and board. Thumbs up for, “Whoever has to approve PETG or not for our lasers needs to reach his/her own conclusions.”


Well, it’s no longer my decision, but if it were, I would usually defer to ULS’s materials database (or another manufacturer) if there were no precedent in the wiki already. In this case, the database mentions that PET films cut rather well with a 10.6 micron laser, which lines up with most of the general-internet commentary that thin materials are good but as the material gets thicker (somewhere >~2mm) it’s not worth the effort.


Makes sense

JDS Industries has what they call Impact Modified Clear Acrylic Sheet this is 0.03" thick and laser cuts very well. It is $3.25 for a 12" x 24" sheet. If you have any interest, I can pick some up for you. They have 12,500 sheets in stock locally. It is also available in 24" x 24" and 24" x 48" sheets with similar price points.

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Thank cary, let me see if i can figure out the general dimensions needed. I would only want to start with 1 sheet and see how it goes. Either way its waaaaay cheaper than the actual product, that pretty much seems like a throwaway. $60-70 for that plastic bit and the zip ties. There’s a bunch of nylon webbing ones but they look hot for summer.

Might be interesting to compare with the lucent.

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Just curious, why does your horse need a COVID mask?,intake%20while%20still%20offering%20exercise
trying to curb its tendencies to look like me, I’d wager…

Jast is correct. The little one i bought last year turned out to be an air fern. She’s gained quite a bit of weight.

May last year

A few weeks ago. I had a nice video of her jiggling around at a trot with me trying to give her a light work out. You aren’t supposed to work them hard at her age. But talk won’t let me upload it because it’s into the wrong format on my phone.

Every time i show someone a picture they just say “fat,” so i am going to try rotating through a few different muzzles.

Maybe she’s part Belgian?
They aren’t skinny minny race horses, y’know…

She’s a papered quarter horse :joy::grimacing:

From ranch lines i suppose instead of racing but they do race quarters.

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I think that I may have at least one 12x24 sheet of it at home. Let me know if you want to try it out.

If you have 12 by 24 i would just be able to check the feel of the material. I think the horse sized is 24" diameter. It would be flexed a lot from the pressure of eating.

Since it seems like it’s 24in i wasnt sure if should get a sheet up a size or a 48 x 24 so i have 2 attempts?

I’ll find it and let you know when I can bring it to the Space.