Laser
etching: Material
is etched with the laser. You can feel the
etching with your fingernail. The lines are etched into the
surface
of the material. On anodized and colored
aluminum, the metal will
change color from the base color to white thus providing a high
contrast mark.
Laser marking:
Material is marked with the laser. The characters
are marked onto the surface of the material. With this
method the
desired result is a bold contrasting character. On
stainless steel,
the characters are black. On plastic, the characters
are dark gray
(near black in most cases). While this method provides nice
contrasting images, it is not UV stable for extended periods of time if
used outdoors. If that is a concern, you should choose the Laser
Etched version.
Laser
etched/marked bar
coded tags are designed to perform in a wide variety
of
conditions. Laser
etched/marked bar codes perform differently
than
printed bar codes because they are physically etched and/or
impregnated
into the surface of the material. This
gives you the benefit of a very durable surface, especially on
polyurethane which
withstands
a great deal of chemical and heat abuse. It
is always best to determine if your scanner will acceptably read the
tags
before and after submitting them to your specific
environmental
conditions. Depending on the bar code scanner, you may get
better
results scanning at an upward angle, not straight on.
For your convenience, we work directly with a Symbol
Technologies VAR
and pass on our bar code equipment discounts to our
customers
and distributors.
Please keep us in mind if you are in need of any equipment or
would like to demo a scanner. Pricing
is determined by the cycle time required
to produce
the image on the tag.
Therefore, the larger the image, the higher the cost. We can burn
logos, a wide variety of fonts and bar codes, and do custom
identification right off of your
data disk.
Because each job is unique, we do quote each one
individually. If a bar coded tag is
going to be scanned by a hand held
scanner
6-10" away, you may consider decreasing the size of the tag to
save some
money. Factory
direct pricing for these tags can range
from $.35 to
$3.50 per tag depending on the size, quantity, setup
costs,
fixturing designs and programming costs.
We
can sequentially number or burn custom numbers from a text file.
If you would like specific prototypes made, would like
additional samples, have any
questions or concerns, please contact us.
