Picture of laser cutter here! |
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The Laser Cutter is in the OEDK Room 111, right next to the 3D printer.
The Laser Cutter is technically under the shared equipment authority and requires the user to have fund and group number in order to use. If you are part of a design group (senior design, freshman design, etc) you are free to use the laser cutter so long as you respect the reservations that others have made.
Before you do any cutting on the laser cutter, the laser must be properly focused. VIDEO HERE!
To properly focus the laser:
The laser cutter works like a large, powerful pen plotter. The way it knows which settings to use on which curves in the document is by the color of the curve. So if you wanted cut 1 part of the document deeply and raster in the inner portion for etched appearance you could do both operations in 1 go. All you have to do is make sure that the line color is one of the "Laser Cutter X" colors (where X is normal color like blue or red...hence the color should read something like "Laser Cutter Black"). DO NOT use just any color, these colors are the ONLY colors that the laser cutter software will recognize and translate to motions and cuts on the laser cutter.
The laser cutter has the following abilities:
Unless you are popping off many, many parts the speed setting of the laser cutter is more like a modifier coefficient to the power since the laser cutter makes its cuts relatively quick regardless of the speed setting. Imagine the laser cutter is to power 70, but is going really slowly. That power now has more time to "soak in" to the material and cut deeper (and possible wider). If the laser cutter is set to the same power but to a higher speed the cutting laser will only be over any particular spot for a very short period of time and hence may only scratch the surface.
While this may make it seem like the speed should always be as slow as possible it is also important to note that if the laser sits in one place for too long and it cuts all the way through the material on the bed, the laser will begin to scatter off of the honeycomb and aluminum backing. This can cause pits and scratches on the back of your material. Care should therefore be taken to optimize the speed for maximum penetration whilst avoiding unnecessarily long soak times. This setting varies on the material and thickness being cut. Precomputed tables for optimal speed and power settings have been provided in the Tables section.
Since the laser cutter is not a perfect machine it is susceptible to backlash. The laser head builds up considerable momentum at high speeds, since the machine is not bolted to the floor this can cause the entire machine to shift in one direction or another. While not a problem for most cuts, if great accuracy is needed this should be taken into account.
Useful for making smooth circles. The Higher the DPI the smoother the shape comes out. Also usually slows down speed of cut. If edges of cuts or rasters seem jagged or unclear, try increasing the DPI. Default DPI is about 300.
[Link to youtube oedk training video]
The laser is generally good for anything that isn't metal. Remember that it works by heating the material up very quickly with the laser. If the material doesn't heat well, it probably won't cut well.
We suggest you export your file to an Adobe Illustrator file if possible. Most drawing programs will be able to export to an illustrator file. If you can not do this then simply export to one of the vector file formats (svg, eps, ai). DO NOT just take a screen shot or try to print a rastered picture (jpg, png, bmp, etc). The laser cutter needs a vector file to correctly cut things. You can go through the vectorization process to turn a rastered image into a vector set, but the results are never perfect. Export to vector to ensure a good cut.