We've engraved quite a few substation diagram projects over recent years. We have engraved these in various material options. And they are now displayed at various substations up and down the country.They tend to be 841 x 595mm or A1 if you prefer the shorter version. Which is pretty bloody big when it comes to engraved signage. The sheet sizes are 1220 x 610mm so its getting close to the maximum size available in engraving laminate anyway.
Engraved Substation Diagram Options
Historically we HAD to mechanically engrave these because out laser bed was too small. However, we now have a laser that is 915 x 610mm so laser engraving A1 size is possible. It doesn't make much difference to you really. Apart from it being quicker and usually the file format has more scope when laser engraved. Because the machine isn't having to create a tool path for a cutter to follow we are able to engrave from a PDF in most cases.A DXF or EPS file is best practice though so if you have one please do send it over. When I say it's quicker, it still isn't a 5 minute job as I'm sure you can appreciate. However, if you have the file ready to go and there are no problems with it we can usually turnaround a plastic one in 24-48 hours. We can use standard thickness of 1.6mm but at this size you really want to be using 3mm. It makes sense to have the extra rigidity and so much of the cost with these is the engraving time rather than the material element.
Stainless Steel Engraved Substation Diagram Options
The first substation diagram we actually engraved was stainless steel. Again, mechanically engraved because of the huge size. This took a couple of days to produce and wasn't a relaxing job to work on. The fear of 'missing a bit' or getting near the end and the machine going too deep (it happens) was fairly high. But, my God, the finish was amazing and so worth the effort.You do have some scope on colour infill with mechanical engraving as it is paint infilled afterwards. For example, we infilled the schematic in black paint but the ABB logo was infilled with RED paint to be on brand.You can choose any thickness you want really for these in stainless. We would suggest you don't go thinner than 1.5mm thick though and really 2mm is plenty thick enough. You are just paying extra for a thicker plate for no benefit if you go to 3mm thick in our mind.
Laser engraving substation diagrams on stainless steel
We can now laser engrave the stainless steel diagrams at this size but that isn't without its issues because of the amount of lines. Engraving lines can throw up issues, which is ridiculous I know. They just sometimes don't 'take' fully but you never really know till after you have removed it from the machine and trying to line it back up again to repair it isn't as easy as you'd like.The other problem is because the engraving is as a raster is goes from left to right and back again. It does this across the whole drawing, therefore all vertical lines take ages! So with this type of work, it is almost as if you were attempting to fill an almost A1 pieces of stainless with a solid rectangle. Using a 0.1mm thick laser beam...So that is why we usually choose mechanical engraving for substation diagrams. It feels like you have more control over the situation, rather than press go and hope for the best.
Chemical etching for stainless steel substation diagrams
We first used chemical etching when had a lot more information to fit onto one of the following diagrams. The same size plate I might add. Not unusual in our line of work but never the less a challenge when it happens. So we chemically etched it. By the time the template had been printed for us to do the chemical etching process though it didn't work out any quicker. But that one really wouldn't have been possible to engrave, due to text size being well below 2mm as I mentioned before. I know, well below 2mm in the normal world is pretty damn small but that's the sort of sizes we talk in.
0.5mm is actually a lot to us
In fact, I was once talking to an ear/brain surgeon about him drilling and doing work on someone's brain via their ear and he said something along the lines of having a 0.5mm margin of error. I was probably the only person he'd said that to that was relieved it was such a lot! Not that I would want a go at it, by hand! The machines we use are significantly better than the old Pantograph ones which are like rubbing your belly and patting your head at the same time. You may not be old enough to remember those, but I am. Just! I put those into retirement as soon as I could, I can tell you! Not a skill I was going to master.We often get asked to engrave to a depth of 1mm but very rarely is it necessary. We engrave these to around 0.4mm because the text and symbols are too small to allow for any deeper.So yes, chemical etching is an option but we usually mechanically engrave where we can. Etching does look very good but it isn't any quicker or cheaper in most cases. It doesn't go as deep as mechanical engraving so there is less paint infill naturally. We all want your substation diagram to look fantastic and be readable for years to come. So a good level of paint infill make sense in my mind.
Next steps for engraved substation diagrams
Email us at sales@tie.uk.com or call the office 01162837619 to discuss your requirements or get a quote. You can fill the contact form in if you prefer and we'll get back to you within 24 hours. We can work from a pdf or picture to quote for these. But we will likely need a dxf or eps to engrave the diagram. That can follow though with the PO or around that time. I'm sure you don't want to be doing a fag packet sketch for one of these but usually we say we can work with that too.If you like to watch machine in action, you can see a large scale brushed stainless steel plate being engraved here. Large Rotary Engraved Stainless Steel Control Panel Fascia (youtube.com)
