Textile Processing Tips & Tricks

Laser machines and textiles are a wonderful combination. The focused usage of a laser gives fabrics a high quality finish. Patterns, too, can effortlessly be realized. Learn below about what must be considered when laser processing natural and synthetic textiles.

Laser engraving synthetic textiles

Certain fabrics, like synthetic leather, fleece, or synthetic felt, are very simple to engrave. Since synthetic materials melt during engraving, high contrast is easy to achieve. To get a homogenous engraving, use a Z-offset of 1 to 5 mm, depending on the fabric used. Use a resolution of up to 500 dpi for laser engraving.
Some textiles, such as thin synthetic fiber materials, will not work for engraving because they will melt during the process. You can quickly and efficiently see if your fabric will allow homogenous engraving by using the grayscale matrix.

Laser cutting synthetic textiles

Synthetic textiles work wonderfully for laser cutting. Because of the plastic content, when heated, each individual fiber merges together and is automatically sealed. Since fraying doesn't happen, time is saved during post-processing because you do not need to hem.
To cleanly cut the material, i.e., get neat edges that have no smoke residue, it is necessary that the synthetic fabrics are not cut with too high power and low speed. When laser cutting synthetic textiles, we recommend you use a frequency between 1000 Hz and 3000 Hz.

CAUTION: Synthetic textiles—particularly synthetic leather—will often contain PVC. These materials should not be laser cut or engraved. If these materials are processed, hazardous gases or dust could be created, endangering the laser user or the functioning of the laser machine. Here, you can find an overview of unsuitable materials for laser processing.