Vinyl records have been in the market for years. It was a major source of music for the people of 20th century.

And after that, they were almost gone. However, with the advancement in the laser industry, laser engraving has been a versatile solution for many industries.

This article talks about the recent re-emergence of vinyl records because of laser engraving technology.

A little throwback to the history

Developed in the mid-1800s, Vinyl records were among the most dominant source of music till the 20th century. In 1990s the small size cassettes and CDs replaced these vinyl records.

The introduction of technology in the entertainment industry made people adopt new emerging things. However, these instruments were able to maintain their worth. With a large number of people still using vinyls to record their music.

With the introduction of engraving technology, these recorders have started coming back in trend. Numerous artists have started recording music in this format. In fact, according to current reports, vinyl sales are increasing year over year.

Additionally, Sony recently made an announcement that for the first time in 30 years they will be reopening the vinyl plant.

On the other hand, CNBC did a report on vinyl sales that stated that in 2016 total sale numbers for vinyl were 13 million. The highest number ever the company has had since 1991.

How this transformation became possible?

Laser Engraving in Vinyl Record:

In 2016 a company named Rebeat, located in Australia did a patent of the new method i.e. producing vinyl records using laser engraving. Later when they were able to increase their funding, they went on to reintroduce these records in the market.

Rebeat is calling these new records HD vinyl. And according to sources, these new records would have long playtime and better sound quality.

If you are looking to upgrade your laser machines with new parts you can look online for Bystronic spare parts or Prima spare parts for quality results.

Working:

The digital audio data from the device converts into an accurate image and represents it in a 3D inverted surface model for music. Further, it goes for mastering and size evaluation to prevent any unneeded gaps during printing.

It creates 3D images on ceramic plates. Whereas in traditional vinyl pressing, nickel stampers are useful instead of ceramics. 

But, they wear out faster compared to other ceramics and produce records that decrease the quality as stamping plates lose details.

In fact, Rebeat claimed that with the help of laser engraving along with ceramic plates, up to 10,000 records production is possible without any loss in quality.

Additionally, they even said that by replacing vinyl pressing with laser engraving they were able to reduce the manufacturing time by 60%.

Pro tip: All HD vinyl produced by Rebeat will be backwards compatible and will be playable on any standard turntable.

Oreo Records and Laser Engraving:

Another big news is from Oreo cookie company. According to reports from Digital Music News, oreo recently partnered with the company called Dimension Plus to create Oreos capable of playing on the special turntable.

The company engraves the grooves on the iconic cookies which in turn produces Oreo’s theme song in different music styles like Jazz, classical, electronic and Chinese pop music.

To upgrade your laser machines with new parts you can look online for Bystronic spare parts or Prima spare parts for quality results.

A few of the major reasons that define the longevity of the records:

1. Young collectors are having interests in collecting these records as it gives them a retro
2. feel.
3. The interest of baby boomers who grew up using them.
4. The audio quality of vinyl records renders the best results. Because they are the closest to the original format.
5. Additionally, engraved Vinyl records can be an art piece or autographs from their favorite artists.

Final Words:

Sometimes it may seem that technology is overpowering the world of music. However, Vinyl records and laser engraving can be the best example to overrule this type of statement. The collaboration between laser engraving and vinyl records is thriving in the industry and creates the need as it gives them the freedom of reliving those good old days again with a touch of technology.

Source: https://www.evernote.com/shard/s548/sh/b85b924a-e13d-4d3d-9168-69656a5ab9e5/7e07981b0edc3f185118656f93ed9957

Having a laser engraving business is just so perfect in today’s world. There are hardly any disadvantages we can think about in the engraving business. The basic requirement of any laser engraving business owner is to find the perfect material for their business which also provides the best possible profit as well.

Well, the answer to their requirements is easy.

Bamboo.

Yes, you heard it right.

Bamboo is one of the most multipurpose materials that has been useful throughout the history of mankind. Be its uses in building roads, houses, bedsheets, accessories, etc.

You’ll find them in every industry.

So, if you are thinking about how to go about laser engraving work in bamboo, then we have just the right article for you.

In this article, I have covered seven amazing things you can create with bamboo using a laser engraving machine equipped with Mazak parts and Bystronic parts.

People use bamboo because of its strength and renewability. But there are many other reasons why people choose this amazing material for their laser engraving projects. Bamboo is light and soft in nature which helps in beautifully engraving it.

Now, let's look at the creative and profitable products you can create with bamboo engraving.

• Engraved Bamboo Cutting Boards:

Engraved bamboo cutting boards are the perfect wedding gift. They provide a personalized touch to the gifts which can add long-lasting memories to your loved one’s special days. The wedding industry is big, growing, and full of opportunities. Hence, it will be a smart move to open up on this side of the laser engraving industry. Also, make sure to choose the right laser engraving machine with the right parts like Mazak parts and Bystronic parts.

• Bamboo Engraved Tumblers:

Tumblers are always in fashion. They make for excellent insulators and are extremely useful to carry your liquids on the go. But when you want to gift someone tumblers you avoid it because of its simple design. But they can be one of the best gifts if you add a little bit of personalization. Yes, you got it. You can engrave these tumblers and turn them into personalized proper gift material. They are perfect wedding gifts, fundraising return gifts, and even corporate gifts.

• Customize Price Tags:

If you are a retail store owner and looking to provide a unique experience in your store, then having customized price tags can be your secret weapon. They are a perfect example of classic luxury touch and can reflect what your store could provide. Having these custom-made price tags might seem like it requires a lot of time but in reality, it’s not so. With a perfect laser machine and Bystronic parts, you can make them in a short time and it also helps your store to stand out of the crowd.

• Retail Display:

Thinking of entering the retail market? Then it’s just perfect for you to enter with the unique display settings. With the help of bamboo, you can cut and engrave them just perfectly. You can make displays in unique structures like honeycomb or a zigzag stand to display various products. It is very obvious that’ll grab your customers’ attention.

• Laser Cut Bamboo Rulers:

Thinking to gift something unique to your teachers? Be it the teacher’s day or their birthday, customized rulers are just the perfect gift for any teacher. Engraving their names or anything related to them on these rulers makes it more personalized and can help you connect with your mentors better. Such personalized gifts make sure that your professor remembers you forever.

• Engraved Birth Announcements:

Child of birth is as big and important as a wedding. These custom-made birth announcements will always be special for any parents. Because we know how special children are to their parents. So, if you are looking to open yourself to the array of new opportunities then this could be just right for you. Once you enter this market it is for sure you are going to get the orders around the year. Make sure you let parents decide the design and all the minute details as this could be an extremely special moment for them.

• Bamboo Engraved Home Decor:

Untapping the power of the home decor is just a perfect decision as a business owner. It is a huge market and includes lots of opportunities for your business to grow. You can make many things for home decor like a customized opener, basic things for keeping in showpiece and what not.

Final Words:

Well, bamboo is useful for many things and many of its unique characteristics and offers high value for which your consumers will ready to pay. Additionally, these bamboo material is very easy to customize and provides proper finishing and perfect designs.

Thinking of starting a laser engraving business?

Beware of these 9 myths!

Starting a laser engraving business is a big decision. It’s a great way to earn extra income or you can pursue it as a hobby as well. This field is growing as engraved artifacts are always in demand. People love personalized things as it reflects their personality. It’s amazing to gift engraved things to your loved ones. And they want designs to be out of the box which is the hard part of starting a laser engraving business. So, with the right laser machine, spare parts like Bystronic spare parts or Amada parts, and the right motivation, you can build a huge business.

All the other things you might have heard about laser engraving are just myths.

So, in this article, we will bust some of the misconceptions these myths might have created in your minds.

• Laser Is Hard to Learn

Learning anything new is hard. The same goes for laser machines too. Initially, you might find it hard to learn but with time, you learn how to use it to perfection. Companies selling these machines have training staff who can help you in learning and using these machines. So, you don’t have to worry about finding an expert or trainer to learn this machine.

•  Return of Investment

Of course! You do get a return on your investment. Starting a business always comes with a risk. Initially, your goal should be to breakeven. But once you start showing your creativity in this industry you will grow your business and start getting customer orders. You just need to have patience, creativity, good customer service and strategy to grow your business. And the right laser cutting machine.

•  Difficult to Learn Software

Well, it’s not so. You just need to design a program for the laser machine to engrave or cut. The program must support vector and raster format.

Let’s learn what raster and vector formats are:

A raster file has a grid of pixels that builds up an image. It is useful in engraving an image or a grayscale image on any material.

A vector format has nodes. You can enlarge images of this format without losing quality.

But, if you don’t know how to write a program, you can use free files that are available online and start using laser machines or you can refer some online tutorials to make it easier for you to understand how to use the machine.

•   Marketing Is Tough

Not really. Marketing your engraved products is not that difficult. You know why? Because your products show your creativity. Customers love personalized products. You can post your product images on any social media platform, share in the local groups or collaborate with any of the local companies. To increase your visibility, you tie up with companies and engrave their company logos on mugs or shirts and provide them as a free giveaway. These are just some of the ideas. But let me tell you there is no limit when it comes to marketing your products or showing your creativity.

•  Lack of Creativity

It’s fine at the initial level if you lack creativity. As I mentioned above, there are many free designs available online. You can use the ones you love and start engraving with those designs. As time passes, you will realize what type of designs your customers love and which designs are trending. You evolve as you learn. So, just be patient with yourself.

• You Can Not Make Enough Money

Laser engraving business is always in demand because it gives customers the freedom of personalization. You just need to think out of the box and bring out your creativity. Buyers are always ready to pay what you ask. So, if you are putting accuracy and perfection at the core of your products, you won’t have to worry about not earning enough money.

• Lack of Support

You will not lack support as the companies who sell the laser machines are in business for decades and know very well the basics of customer service. So, you will not remain in darkness. Companies send trained fabricators to their customers to teach how to use the laser engraving machine. But if you still have doubts you can always call their technical support staff as they are ready to help you 24/7.

• Market Is Competitive

Of course, it is. Every market today is competitive. But that should not stop you from starting your business. This market is very huge. And believe us, there will be space for your unique designs.

Closing statement:

Make sure you don’t fall prey to the above-mentioned myths of laser engraving business. Start your business with your unique designs, right laser machine, Bystronic spare parts, Amada parts, etc. The market is competitive but everyone can make a place for themselves if they want to and customers love personalized curated designs.

Laser cutters help you produce products with high standards of precision. They are accurate and capable of providing you detailed and complex cuts. Overall, they provide you the freedom to design your products the way you want. You can cut materials using these machines according to your designs. And 99.9% of the time there are no chances of error.

These are fully automated and saves a lot of your production time. As your worker just needs to move materials, it leads to low material wastage with lower production costs. They can also provide laser engraving services to develop your projects and find a solution for your production. You can produce different depths and dimensions of your projects.

Let’s find out how.

The Working

It is a digital manufacturing technology, working on 2D vector files. The laser cutter has a laser resonator that depends on the cutting method, containing a mixture of a crystal body or glass fibers. When there is a force of energy applied to the mixture of the cutting process, the force sends the beam through different mirror lenses which focus on the laser.

The laser beam travels through the nozzle straight at the material. When it contacts the surface, it vaporizes the material in the shape of the vector file. There is a part of the material which melts with the laser, that is Kerf.

Basically, the laser beam is a column of very high-intensity light of a single wavelength or color. For a typical CO2 laser, its wavelength is in the infra-red part of the light spectrum. Hence, it is invisible to the human eye. The beam is about ¾ of an inch in diameter. It travels from the laser resonator that creates the beam on the machine’s beam path. These rays may bounce in different directions by several mirrors, or beam benders before they focus onto the plate. The focused beam will go through the bore of a nozzle right before it hits the plate. Also passing through that nozzle bore is a compressed gas like Oxygen or Nitrogen.

You can focus the laser beam by a special lens, or a curved mirror that takes place in the laser cutting head. It should focus on the spot of the laser material. The focus spot and density of the energy on it should be perfectly round, consistent, and centered in the nozzle. Just like when you use a magnifying glass to focus the sun’s rays onto a leaf, and that soon catches fire. Now when you think about when you focus 6KWatts of energy into a single spot, it can get extremely hot. The laser cutters containing Mazak parts or Bystronic parts can easily handle these high wattages for the best results.

This high-powered density can cause rapid heating, melting, and partial or complete vaporizing of the material. When you are cutting mild steel, the heat of the laser beam is enough to create an “oxy-fuel” burning process, and the laser gas will be pure oxygen, resembling an oxy-fuel torch. When you cut stainless steel or aluminum, the laser beam melts the material. The high-pressure nitrogen is the main component to blow the molten metal out of the kerf.

With a CNC laser cutter, laser cutting head can move over the metal plate in the shape of the desired part. Hence, it cuts the part out of the plate. A capacitive height control system can maintain an accurate distance between the end of the nozzle and the plate being cut. The cut can be affected by raising or lowering the focal point from just above the surface of the plate.

Other than these, many other parameters that work and affect quality. But when you control them properly, laser cutting gives a stable, reliable, and accurate cutting process.

The Endless Opportunities that come with it

You can make the most of this technology in various industries using high-quality laser cutters with Mazak parts and Bystronic parts. Whether it is a mechanical engineering, a technical firm or a creative space. For example, you can combine 3D printing and laser cutting. And after that, you get perfect for production needs and highly customized products.

Being a fabricator is not an easy job. One of the hardest tasks you might have is to maintain the efficiency of your laser cut machine. And you can do so by following adequate steps to improve the flow of laser-cut parts through a fabrication shop. Using quality parts like Bystronic laser parts, Mazak laser parts will benefit you for a streamlined flow. Here is how you can speed up your laser production by maintaining the flow of laser cut parts.

1. Shop Layout

From all the areas of concern, it is most important that the layout you are working is efficient. Your shop’s layout can make or break even the most versatile production plan. A point to note is that the more time your parts spend in transit or waiting for delivery, your overall efficiency will reduce and can affect the production and overall the plant.

In the ideal scenario, the incoming material should load directly into or nearby the main machinery and all the secondary operations should happen near the laser output area. You must be wondering this is such an obvious thing. But sometimes fabricators do not pay much attention to the layout while installing the laser machine. To overcome this layout mistake, usually, fabricators or owners use a patchwork approach. And when a patchwork approach to shop is inefficient, the entire shop layout would need a redesign.

Any layout’s basic objective is ensuring the smooth flow of work, material, parts, and information through a system. When you understand the overall flow of the shop, it can help the material move efficiently.

1. Proper Maintenance

It is important to consider that maintenance is an equally important part when it comes to laser machinery. To be honest, some fabricators don’t pay much attention to the maintenance of their parts. Unless they experience some problems in the speed or accuracy, they will not feel obligated to maintain their lasers or their quality Amada parts.

It is important to stay on top of the recommended maintenance activities. Because once a problem occurs, the equipment operator won’t be that much more productive. You don’t have to pay much attention because today’s manufactured lasers come with enhanced options that make it easier to practice healthy maintenance. You can schedule and set a regime that allows you to stay on top of your maintenance schedule.

1. Programming

It becomes crucial to program automated material and part handling, majorly for maintaining efficiency. In the production industry, it has become a necessity to have automation. It yields double or triple results. A shop that upholds a manual sheet can vastly have different outputs than a shop that has a completely automated system.

To help avoid downtime, it is necessary to optimize your plant layout, maintaining your equipment on a schedule, programming, and automation, monitoring your production.

In the past years, program software developers used such algorithms that homed parts with as little waste as possible. This saves you more money which means more money left in the pocket of the manufacturer. It is important to maintain integrity in laser nests while unloading them automatically so that they can render at various locations. It is true in cases where high-capacity carts are in use. Because a stack of cut sheets can become a tangle of parts and scrap.

1. Automation

Technology never stops providing better tools for increased efficiency in the workflow. After optimizing your shop layout, performing maintenance and programming, it is important to set out to stride toward laser automation.

If you can operate your industrial laser with 50 percent efficiency then it is pretty much good! The most common beam-on times for an average mix of materials have hovered between 30 and 40 percent historically. But your laser could be capable of more than that. If you add a very basic load and unload automation system, it can increase your beam-on time to more than 80 percent.

If you use standard cart unloading, it might create denoting bottlenecks which can delay the arrival of parts downstream. Conveyors are popular as they allow denesting to occur at the same rate as production. It enables you to react more quickly to production issues. It gives you more time to downstream operations.

1. Monitoring the Production

To make some revolutionary improvements to your laser-cut-part flow, it is important to understand and track all the jobs. When you get statistics like beam-on-time, transit delays, maintenance schedules, and process bottlenecks, it can help you in achieving continuous improvement.

There some laser cutting equipment that comes with a production monitoring option. When there are robust production monitoring and support system intact, you can design and provide transparency to your machine process anytime. it will enable you to achieve real-time access to an extensive amount of data through your desktop or mobile device. To find quality laser parts you can go for Bystronic laser parts and Mazak laser parts for the quality outputs.