OUGD504: Laser cutting Induction

To start at the Laser cut induction, we had a Health and Safety talk, been told what we can and can't use with the laser cutter. These been Metal and mirrors, anything reflective for that manner. However you can use reflective acrylic, it's matte on one side and a mirror on the other and this cuts fine. The main reason this is obviously the laser is gonna reflect about the room if it does hit a mirror.

You can't cut glass either, it shatters, but you can engrave it (if it's flat) and raster it. But you're limited to just this.

The other main problem that was raised is from cutting acrylic sheets, they have fumes that come off them so you're limited to just cutting this for an hour so it doesn't harm too much. However long exposure can have some effects. However, acrylic cuts really nicely, especially the fluorescent sheets, this is because it doesn't leave burn marks behind.

How you get the file to the laser cutter is through a program that is installed on the machines next to the laser cutter which is called Ethos, it's a specialist program just made for the laser cutter to create the designs to cut, you're limited to cutting up to A1 however. You can import straight from a illustrator or photoshop file, meaning you can also cut raster images. (Only in grayscale which produces a really 

nice effect.)

The different types of cut the machine can do are:

• No cut - No cut.
• Raster - Creates a image, using the grayscale values as height values.
• Cut through - Cuts through the material.
• Engrave - Engraves the material.
• Kiss cut - Like engrave but very faint.

How to: Operate the laser cutter machine.

1. Turn the Laser cutter on if it's not on already.
2. Place the material on the bed
3. Loosen the nut on the laser and place the spacer on top and bring the laser back down and tighten the nut. (This focuses the laser perfectly to the material.)
4. Then press the online button, which is a little hand.
5. Then press the load media button, which is a piece of paper.
6. Use the arrows to place the red dot of the laser onto the bottom left corner of the paper.
7. Press enter.
8. Then move it to the top right, with at least 3cm of space from where the artwork is gonna be.
9. Press enter.
10. Insert your work into the Ethos program, and make sure it's all correct.
11. Then apply the different cut lines to the lines of the art-work.
12. Change the material type.
13. Then send it to be cut.

Laser cutting examples: