MUKILTEO – Synrad Inc. has long been the world’s largest manufacturer of carbon dioxide lasers, with its devices doing everything from cutting material for vehicle air bags to etching tiny electronic parts.
Now, the Mukilteo-based company has developed a new laser that will be more at home in the local mall than on a factory floor.
The 10-watt Genie can quickly etch virtually any design or words into denim and other materials, allowing customers to personalize their clothes.
“We have a lot of retailers interested in the machine, and I think it’s going to be big,” said Todd Whitten, sales manager for the Genie. “It gives the retailer the chance to offer personalized fashion.”
Customized clothing is increasingly popular, he said. In Japan, where retailers especially have inquired about the Genie, the trend has been big for some time.
In this country, denim-etching lasers haven’t showed up in many places yet, but the clothing industry is talking about them, said Claire Dupuis, senior trend forecaster for Cotton Inc.
“There’s a huge buzz about it right now,” Dupuis said. “It seems like an easy way to get a design on denim without degrading the fabric.”
Because the Genie’s a sealed, low-powered laser, it’s safe for a store clerk to use, and Synrad designed it to be easy to operate. When connected to a desktop or laptop computer with Synrad’s software, choosing a design and etching it can be done with a few mouse clicks.
In addition to choosing from stock designs, customers can create their own designs and have them scanned into the computer and then etched by the laser.
The unit, which can mark an area up to 8 inches by 8 inches, takes from 30 seconds to 4 minutes to complete its work.
The laser beam, invisible to the eye, removes the dye from denim and other materials, leaving a mark that’s permanent but doesn’t otherwise damage the fabric.
Wisps of smoke and fumes created by the process are sucked away from the unit’s plastic enclosure by a built-in fan system.
The laser unit is touted primarily for its ability to etch on blue jeans and other denim items. But, Whitten said, it also would work on similar tight-weave, naturally dyed cotton fabrics. Synrad still is testing it on other fabrics such as velvet, polyester fleece and leather.
The 86-pound, tabletop Genie, which Synrad is marketing under the Ricochet Lasers name, sells for less than $10,000. Though the company hasn’t found a big-name customer yet for the Genie, Whitten said he’s talking to national department stores and other potential buyers, such as embroidery shops.
While this is one of its first visible forays into the retail market, Synrad has a long-lived reputation among those who use low-powered industrial lasers.
The company, which moved from Bothell to Mukilteo nine years ago, was founded in 1984 by the late Peter Laakmann. He and others pioneered the lower cost, sealed carbon dioxide laser as an improvement to the large, expensive and less reliable lasers of the time.
In Synrad’s lasers, the carbon dioxide molecules sealed in a glass tube are stimulated by electricity. That causes the molecules to emit their energy in the form of photons, which are bounced between mirrors and focused into a beam.
After Laakmann’s death in 1998, Synrad became a subsidiary of New York-based Excel Technology Inc. With 135 employees, Synrad annually sells about 10,000 lasers worldwide.
Reporter Eric Fetters: 425-339-3453 or fetters@heraldnet.com.
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