1. Introduction to Laser Cutters
5/28/2018 6:07 PM
Welcome to the laser cutter workshop, my name is (insert name here), I am majoring in (insert major here), and (one interesting fact about yourself).
© 2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Microsoft, Windows, Windows Vista and other product names are or may be registered trademarks and/or trademarks in the U.S. and/or other countries.
The information herein is for informational purposes only and represents the current view of Microsoft Corporation as of the date of this presentation. Because Microsoft must respond to changing market conditions, it should not be interpreted to be a commitment on the part of Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information provided after the date of this presentation. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

2. Why are Laser Cutters useful?
Laser cutters are useful for cutting and engraving a variety of different materials:
Refer to Materials Guidelines in prototyping room for complete list
Common Banned Materials: Polycarbonate, PVC, Reflective surfaces
The most commonly used materials on the laser cutter are cardboard, acrylic, paper, delrin, and various fabrics but not limited to these.
The ITLL does not sell or provide full material to students, however there are scraps available in the bins below the laser cutters. Materials like acrylic can be purchased from many hardware stores (examples on later slide).
Recycled cardboard and paper can be found outside the ITLL near the dumpster area/loading bay and can be used for creating prototypes. This can be useful if you do not want to waste money having to purchase materials such as acrylic and can ensure your part is being created the way you want.
Some materials that are not safe for use are polycarbonate and wood. Polycarbonate releases Hydrochloric acid, and wood is notorious for starting fires when cutting.
Cardboard
Acrylic
Paper
Delrin/ABS
Fabric

3. How does it work? Source Laser Laser Beam Mirror Mirror Focusing Lens
5/28/2018 6:07 PM
Source Laser
Laser Beam
Mirror
Mirror
This is a simplified diagram of how the laser cutters work, there are two mirrors which the source laser bounces off of which then goes through a focusing lens to collimate (make the beam smaller) the beam, in order to cut an engrave your material appropriately. Your material is placed on the bed of the laser cutter and the focusing lens is attached to an apparatus which moves like any typical CNC (computer numeric control) machine in the x and y directions to create a part. In this case we use the focused beam (which is covered in a later section of the presentation) to cut and engrave a variety of different materials.
The laser cutter also has fans which run to help fumigate when cutting and engraving your part, this also helps suction your part to the bed. However, it is a good idea to also tape your part so that during operation it does not shift and your cuts/engravings to do not get offset. More importantly the laser cutter is essentially melting through the material, so having your material taped can prevent warping.
Focusing Lens
Material
Laser Cutting Bed
© 2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Microsoft, Windows, Windows Vista and other product names are or may be registered trademarks and/or trademarks in the U.S. and/or other countries.
The information herein is for informational purposes only and represents the current view of Microsoft Corporation as of the date of this presentation. Because Microsoft must respond to changing market conditions, it should not be interpreted to be a commitment on the part of Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information provided after the date of this presentation. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

4. Examples cut acrylic boxes engraved acrylic cut acrylic chess pieces
engraved text on slate
engraved phone case
cut cardboard assembly
These are examples of laser cut/engraved parts.
Top row: Colorado/Mountains engraving using sheets of acrylic and then glued together and placed on a platform, acrylic boxes, Laser cut acrylic chess pieces.
Bottom row: Slate rock that has been engraved and used as a cutting board, Laser engraved designs on a phone case, 2-D Laser cut pieces then together to form a larger assembly.

5. Preparing the Laser Cutter
Step 1: Turn on the laser cutters; switches are labeled and located on the wall
Step 2: Log into the computers using ITLL login information
Step 3: Swipe BuffOne card and select usage reason
Step 4: Open up Inkscape from the Desktop
The laser cutters are located inside the prototyping room, there are two identical laser cutters (made by a company called Epilog in Golden), each are identical with up to 75W of power, and operate on an invisible wavelength (10,600nm for those curious) as opposed to the normal visible wavelengths seen in a laser pointers like (405nm, purple, 450nm blue, 520nm green, 638nm red, etc.)
First thing you’ll do when you go inside the prototyping room is to turn on the machines, log into the computers using your ITLL login information and then open up Inkscape located on the desktop.
The laser cutter switches are labeled and located on the wall next to laser cutter #2. Just above the switches is a little red lamp, which when illuminated means the vent below is filled with material. This is caused due to the fans that run with the laser cutters to help fumigate when cutting/engraving parts. If this happens, carefully remove the material that is in the vent and throw it away.
Log in to the computers, and open up Inkscape the main program used to “talk” to the laser cutters.
One word of caution is that when you are done with creating your part and turn off the laser cutter, to make sure you are turning off the correct machine so you don’t accidentally end someone’s job.
When you leave the room that you make sure to clean up any scrap material and throw it away or place it in the bin below the laser cutter if it is still useable.
INKSCAPE

6. Inkscape Interface Drawing Space Basic Drawing Tools 24” 36”
Inkscape is a basic drawing interface used to interact with the laser cutters. It is a basic drawing program, kind of like a glorified MS paint program. Inkscape is available at every computer in the ITLL, so when you are ready to cut and or engrave your part you don’t have to spend all of your time in the prototyping room.
The drawing space is (LxW) is 36”x24”, this corresponds to the bed size on the laser cutter. This is the maximum size sheet you can put in the laser cutter, so be aware of that when purchasing larger sheets of material.
The rulers located along the top and sides can help you orient your part inside the machine to ensure you know where you are going to make your part.
The basic tools are located on the toolbar to the left hand side and can be used to create a number select, move, orientate, and dimension a variety of different shapes and text. This is something you can familiarize with yourself in order to get a better understanding on how the tools work. We will briefly go over Inkscape and it’s main functions at the end of the presentation to familiarize you with the different tools available. (Make an example nametag).
36”

7. Step 1: Import or Draw your Object
.jpg and .png images
Drawings
Imported .dxf
Inkscape is great for creating simple shapes, however it can be used to import a variety of different file types for images via (.png, jpeg), CAD Drawings/Parts via (.dxf) files.
The slide above shows a variety of different things you can do, from creating shapes and text, to importing images, and .dxf files.
For those who aren’t particularly good using drawing programs it may be wise to import a file (use file>>import) in something you’re more comfortable creating parts with such as SolidWorks. You can create a part of drawing in SolidWorks or similar CAD program like OnShape and convert part files to a .dxf format that can be directly imported into Inkscape. To do this make sure you save your part file or drawing in that program as a .dxf, and then inside Inkscape using the File>>Import option you can import the .dxf.
For reference: here is the full list of supported Inkscape, bolded are the more commonly used imports/formats:
• Adobe Illustrator (AI) • Adobe Type 1 Font (PFB) • Windows Bitmap (BMP) • OS/2 Bitmap (BMP) • Computer Graphics Metafile (CGM) • Visio (VSD) • CorelDRAW (CDR) • Corel Presentation Exchange (CMX) • Corel PHOTO-PAINT (CPT) • Corel Symbol Library (CSL) • Cursor Resource (CUR) • Microsoft Word (DOC, DOCX, or RTF) • Microsoft Publisher (PUB) • Corel DESIGNER (DES, DSF, DS4, or DRW) • AutoCAD/SolidWorks Drawing Interchange Format (DXF) • Encapsulated PostScript (EPS) • PostScript (PS or PRN) • GIF • JPEG (JPG) • JPEG 2000 (JP2) • Kodak Photo CD Image (PCD) • PICT (PCT) • PaintBrush (PCX) • Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) • HPGL Plotter File (PLT) • Portable Network Graphics (PNG) • Adobe Photoshop (PSD) • Corel Painter (RIF) • Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) • Macromedia Flash (SWF) • TARGA (TGA) • TIFF • Corel Paint Shop Pro (PSP) • TrueType Font (TTF) • WordPerfect Document (WPD) • WordPerfect Graphic (WPG) • RAW camera file formats • Wavelet Compressed Bitmap (WI) • Windows Metafile Format (WMF) • ANSI Text (TXT) • CALS Compressed Bitmap (CAL) • Corel ArtShow 5 (CPX) • Corel Presentations (SHW) • Corel R.A.V.E. (CLK) • CorelDRAW Compressed (CDX) • Corel DESIGNER or CorelDRAW Template (CDT) • Encapsulated PostScript (Desktop Color Separation) • EXE — The EXE format is a Windows 3.x/NT bitmap resource. • FPX — The FlashPix file format stores images at different resolutions in a single file. • Frame Vector Metafile (FMV) • GEM Paint (IMG) • GEM File (GEM) • GIMP (XCF) • ICO — The ICO format is a Windows 3.x/NT icon resource. • Lotus PIC (PIC) • MacPaint Bitmap (MAC) • Macromedia FreeHand (FH • MET Metafile (MET) • Micrografx Picture Publisher 4 & 5 (PP4, PP5) • Picture Publisher File (PPF) • Microsoft Excel (XLS, XLSX, XLSM) • Microsoft PowerPoint (PPT) • NAP Metafile (NAP) • Pattern File (PAT) • PostScript Interpreted (PS or PRN) • SCITEX CT Bitmap (SCT) • Visio (VSD) • WB — WB is the file format for Quattro Pro 6, 7, and 8 spreadsheets. • WK — WK (.wk3, .wk4) is the extension of Lotus spreadsheets. • WSD — WSD is the document format for Wordstar 2000 and Wordstar 7. • XPixMap Image (XPM)

8. Step 1a: Toggle View Settings
Outline Display Mode
Normal Display Mode
VS.
Vector lines are red in “normal” and black in “outline”

9. Step 2: Object Properties
Once you’ve imported your files or drawn the shape you so desire, you’re going to want to set your object properties for that specific thing you made.
For example, the drawn rectangle in the top left, if we right click it we can set its object properties. This is what will tell the laser cutter if you want to engrave or cut something.
On the next slide you’ll see the difference between a object that is engraved and an object that is cut by setting these object properties. The specific object properties that are the most important are the fill and stroke properties, you can shortcut there from this menu.
One thing to note: Imported images will always be engraved unless you outline them and text will also default to an engraving.

10. Step 3a: Setting Cutting Properties
Engraving
By default, the fill and stroke settings in Inkscape will be set to a red line of thickness in. These are the only settings that will create a cut – anything thicker will result in an engraving.
The default view settings show an outline of the shape in grey due to the difficulty in displaying a very thin line.
Text will default to an engraving unless you change the color and thickness, in which case it will cut out the outline of the text as opposed to engraving it.
Note for images they will always be engraved and they use a greyscale to engrave it which means… Lighter colors will result in lighter engravings/cuts, and darker colors will result in deeper engravings/cuts. It is sometimes good to use black and white images or set an image to greyscale (Filters > Color > Greyscale) to show a much deeper contrast on the material.
Cutting

11. Step 3b: Setting Engraving Properties
For any images that need to be engraved, select the image and change the filter to greyscale. On the right is an example greyscale conversion, which will help in seeing how the laser cut will turn out.

12. Step 4: Save the File as a .pdf
Go to File>>Save As and use the dropdown menu to create a pdf. Inkscape is not very good at sending jobs directly to the laser cutters, so we need to open the file in Adobe Acrobat in order to print.

13. Step 5: Open the .pdf in Adobe Acrobat
Open in Adobe Acrobat Reader through the file explorer or by opening up Adobe and going to File > Open and finding your .pdf

14. Step 6: Printing
Printing on the laser cutters through Adobe works similarly to most other printers. Make sure the correct printer is chosen (“LaserCutter #1” or “LaserCutter #2”), then hit properties to modify the power and speed settings.

15. Step 7: Set Raster & Vector Settings
Choose your job type: Raster (Engraving) or Vector (Cutting) – Raster First!
Choose the Raster or Vector Settings that correspond to your material
a. Materials Guidelines list for help
Click OK, then click Print on the next screen 1. 2.
Your Job Type has three options: Raster, Vector, and Combined.
Raster (job type) are used for engraving. (Anything you set in object properties to be larger than 0.001” will be engraved)
Vectors (job type) are used for cutting. (Anything you set object properties in Inkscape to be 0.001” will be cut)
Your speed determines how quickly the apparatus moves across your material when engraving/cutting. Lower speed will result in deeper engravings/cuts and vice versa.
Your power settings determine how intense the beam is going to be. (100% beam fully on, 0% beam completely off). Higher power will result in deeper engravings/cuts and vice versa.
Frequency can generally be left at 2500 Hz, as it does will for cutting.
Combined, doesn’t actually do anything. The laser cutter can only distinguish between one or the other.
In the case you want to have both an engraving and a cut done, you must run through this cycle of twice. (I.e. choose your job type (raster), choose the corresponding settings for your material, press OK, then click Print on the next screen. Once your job has finished, run through this cycle again and (choose your job type (raster), and again choose the corresponding settings for your material, press OK, then click Print on the next screen)
In generally it is good to do your raster jobs first and vector jobs second because this if you do the opposite it may result in your engravings getting offset due to your part shifting when it loses some material, or i.e. the machine gets bumped accidentally.
Once you set those settings, (again if unsure check materials guidelines, and if still unsure talk to Kai, or purple vest people.) Go ahead and Press OK, then Press Print on the next screen.

16. Step 8: Focusing the laser beam
1. Press FOCUS Press GO! 1 2
GOOD
BAD
Laser carriage may run into the bed
You must ensure you’re getting a properly focused beam to cut/engrave your material appropriately. If you don’t you could result in a poor resolution engraving or less deep of a cut. If you’ve ever played with a magnifying glass and used the sun to focus it’s energy down to a small point, the laser cutter works in a similar fashion, just using that focused energy to cut and engrave materials.
To focus the beam, you’ll first press the focus button on the front panel of the laser cutter ensuring your material is located below the focusing arm of the material. Once you’ve done that you can press go, by doing this the arm will press itself onto your material and the little plunger has a spring in it, which will then move a certain z-distance away from your material to account for the thickness and ensure the beam is collimated appropriately.
You only have to focus the laser beam once if you’re only working with one thickness of material, otherwise if you change out for a different material you must re-focus the beam.
Another helpful thing is to use the switch located near the left side of the laser cutter when you open the window to put your material in. This is primarily useful if you are working with thicker materials that might not fit quite right under the focusing arm. You can adjust the bed height up and down as needed. Just be sure to focus it again if you decide to change it.
*ensure material is under focusing arm*

17. Step 9: Run your job!
Double check that your job shows up on the LCD display
Press the Go button again to run your job 1 2
Job #: Title
Run your job by pressing the go button and ensure your job title shows up on the screen. If you don’t save it as anything in Inkscape it will show up as ‘untitled’
The stop button is for pausing your job while it’s running if you want to see how your job is going to turn out. Pressing the Go button again will resume your job.
The reset button is for restarting a job. You can run a job as many times as you wish once completed. This can help if your cut did not go all the way through the first time, or your engravings are not as deep as you’d like.

18. Do not leave your job unattended, it could result in a fire!
Use the emergency stop button located on the right side of the laser cutter if your material catches fire. Fire extinguisher is located next to laser cutters also. Always, grab someone in a purple vest or Kai in the Checkout office if you need assistance. We value safety over a finished/completed part.

19. FAQs
When I press the go button, why doesn’t my job run? Double check your object property settings
Who do I talk to if I need more help? Talk to tech staff in the Launch Point on the first level, before talking to Kai in the checkout office located on the 2B level
Where can I purchase material?
** One common issue students have when running an engraving (raster job type) and it doesn’t run when they press go on the front panel of the laser cutter, chances are one of a few of their objects are not set something to bigger than a hairline, and vice versa for running a cut (vector job type).
Always verify when purchasing acrylic that you are purchasing acrylic and not polycarbonate. These two materials look very similar to each other with one distinct difference in their edges. Acrylic is clear, whereas polycarbonate has a blue-ish purple tint to it’s edge. However, cutting/engraving polycarbonate is strictly prohibited because it emits HCL (Hydro-chloric Acid), toxic!

20. Useful Resources INKSCAPE
Inkscape – has built-in tutorials under Help > Tutorials if students want to design in the program. Tutorials are also available on the website:
Epilog Laser – Go to their resources>>sample club on their website, they have a variety of different projects you can complete on the laser cutter for both cutting and engraving and also explain in detail which material, and settings to use. They even include download files for most of their projects.
Thingiverse – Primarily used for 3D printing parts available for download, but also contain a few cool laser cutter projects.
GrabCad – Similar to Thingiverse, but used for CAD files. This can save you a lot of time if you don’t know/feel like creating an entire part in SolidWorks.
Makercase – Great for creating simple box prototypes, can be useful for creating stuff to house electronics or other things inside.

21. Questions?
????

22. Please help us improve! 3 questions! 3 minutes! bit.ly/itlpro02
Ask students to take a short survey to help improve future workshops.