Engineering specifications
The full source and material matrix behind the rows this page leans on, plus the speed model behind a quoted cycle time.
Branded production and signage
Keep the decoration step on your floor.
The acrylic, the drinkware, the anodised panel: they stop leaving the building for someone else's queue. Cut, engrave and mark them on your own floor, at your own margin.
- A client sample costs a machine minute, not a quoted mockup with freight attached.
- A run of twelve costs about what a run of two hundred costs to set up.
- The edge comes off the machine flame-polished, the same on piece one and piece forty.
Why shops bring it in-house
Nobody buys a laser for a compliance requirement here. They buy it because the decoration step sits in somebody else's queue.
- A rough acrylic edge reads as an amateur job, whatever the artwork on the face is doing.
- A paid mockup freighted in from outside is a sample that often does not get made.
- A run of two hundred costs about what a run of twelve costs to set up.
- The margin on the decoration step stays in the business, on every piece.
What outsourcing costs you now
Four rows that read small on a subcontractor's invoice. Fill them in before anyone books a call.
| What to measure | Why it adds up | Unit |
|---|---|---|
| Decoration spend, all outsourced jobs | Acrylic cutting, engraving and metal marking often sit with different suppliers, spread across several invoices. | NZD per year |
| Freight and handling, both ways | A part travels to the subcontractor and back before it reaches the client. | NZD per year |
| Lead time added to a job | Days on a subcontractor's queue against hours on your own floor. | Days per job |
| Rework on a rejected piece | A rejected edge or an off-register mark means a second freight run and a second wait. | Reworks per year |
Artwork to finished piece
Most of the cost in a branded job is spent before the beam switches on.
- Step 1
Artwork comes in as-is
A vector file, a rough logo or a PDF proof, whatever the client sends. It is checked against what the substrate needs.
- Step 2
Layout and nesting
Parts are laid out against the sheet size you actually buy. Offcut is decided at layout, not at the bin.
- Step 3
Preview, cut and engrave
A heat map shows the toolpath by power, not the artwork, so a bad setting is caught on screen. The job then runs against the saved material profile.
- Step 4
Repeat, months later
The job file and the material profile are stored against the product. The same piece runs to the same finish, months on.
Your materials, row by row
Branded work is not one material. Finish, coating and thickness change how the mark forms.
| Substrate | How it marks | Engineering notes |
|---|---|---|
| Acrylic, cast and extruded | The edge is the product. Cast sheet flame-polishes clear, extruded sheet clouds more. | Power, speed and focus height are set against the sheet and saved as a profile. |
| Anodised aluminium | A dense black forms inside the coating, not on top of it. | Pulse duration is tuned per badge thickness, so a thin badge does not warp. |
| Coated and painted metal | The mark forms in the coating, and the metal underneath sets the contrast. | Coating thickness and colour both move the parameter set for a new supplier batch. |
| Laminates and composite panel | The face material carries the finish, and the core sets how deep the mark can go. | Panel construction is checked before the first cut, since a thin face laminate marks differently to solid sheet. |
The engineering detail
For the engineer, the artwork lead and the person who schedules the line.
Source selection for your range
CO2 at 9.3 to 10.6 micron cuts and engraves acrylic, timber, ply and laminate. Fibre and MOPA mark coated metal and anodised aluminium. A green source at 515 or 532 nm marks copper, brass, gold and silver. The full selection matrix is on the specifications page.
Black inside the anodised layer
A short pulse changes the anodic coating and does not cut it, so the surface stays sealed. Manufacturer figures on a 20 W source run around 8 ns at 200 kHz, 1500 mm per second. On a 0.5 mm badge that keeps the piece flat, not warped.
Annealed marks on stainless
Enough energy grows a sub-surface oxide before the pulse stops, so ablation never happens. The passivation layer that gives stainless its corrosion resistance stays intact. A manufacturer durability test found marks surviving at least 500 sterilisation and cleaning cycles.
Artwork and file handling
A customer's file arrives as a vector, a rough logo or a PDF, and it is parsed into a layer tree. Every element can be shown, hidden, nudged or scaled, and the original file is never altered. A heat map preview shows the toolpath by power, so a bad setting is caught on screen.
Variable data and repeat runs
Sequential numbers, names or codes are pulled from a data file and composed onto each piece. A five hundred piece personalised order becomes one job, not five hundred manual edits. The job file and the profile are stored against the product, so the same piece runs the same months later.
Modules for batch and one-off
A conveyor feeds batched flat pieces, so an operator loads a tray, not a piece. A rotary turns drinkware and cylindrical stock for one full wraparound pass. Fixturing built to your repeat lines holds placement steady from piece one to piece forty. Class 4 safety and extraction are part of the install.
For the rest of the committee
This gets decided by more people than were on the call.
Start here
Modules and rigs
Conveyors, rotaries, fixturing, extraction and enclosures, designed and built in Nelson around the parts you actually run.
Software and file handling
Artwork import, layer editing, layout tools and the heat map preview that catches a bad setting before it hits the sheet.
Programme assurance
The document set, the acceptance gates and the handover pack behind a multi-site or franchise rollout.
Send us a part
Post the piece in the material and surface condition it actually arrives in. Tell us your substrate list and your monthly volumes. You get back a numbered report with the parameter set and the process window.
Last updated August 21, 2026