laser cutter

LDM laser cutter: 

 

Laser cutting (Versalaser)

Here is info about using the versalaser from illustrator

Laser cutter tutorials

User manual for the TEKA filter Teka Manual (310.00 Kb)

LaserPowerSettings tentative:

material thickness power speed ppi comments
hollow cardboard 3mm 50 10% 500 perfect
balsa wood 8mm 90 5% 500 good - a bit too much
balsa wood 8mm 90 10% 500 in 2 passes
compensato wood 6mm 95 3% 800 in 1 pass
compensato wood 4mm 95 10% 1000 perfect in 2 passes
cardboard 0mm 50 20% 500 perfect
cardboard 0mm 80 60% 500 perfect
MDF 6mm 80 1% 400 2 passes!
MDF 4mm 80 1% 400 perfect, in 1 pass
acrylic 3mm 80 1.5% 500 cuts better on 1% but then more material is melted away

 

material thickness power speed ppi comments
hollow cardboard 3mm 50 15% 500 doesn't work
balsa wood 8mm 95 1% 1000 too much
  mm   %   blah

 

Versa with AutoCad (Vector)

Set the lineweight to 0.00. Set the color. Under "Properties > Custom properties" of the Printer/plotter settings you can set different colours to cut differently, or not to cut at all (SKIP/VECTOR/RASTER). Here you will also determin the power, speed and PPI settings for each colour.

Draw a rectangle of 610x300mm. Give it a colour that you will skip printing. When in the printing dialog, choose Plot area > Window (drop-down menu) and select the area of this rectangle.

Paper size should be USER-DEFINED LANDSCAPE. It comes with Versa drivers.

* you can use the settings from pc3 files you will find under "Files". put them here:

C:\Documents and Settings\$user\Application Data\Autodesk\AutoCAD 2010\R18.0\enu\Plotters

and select from a drop down menu in the Printer/plotter options. One is for cutting mdf 6mm, the other one is for acryl 3mm. Use red or blue colour to cut, or change settings.

By default, the versa seems to receive files in raster form (even when sent from autocad). To force autocad to send files to versa driver, you need to configure your plot via the so complex autocad plot dialog.

(1) Install the Versa driver on the machine you want to print from. Even if the versa is not connected to this machine, you'll be able to produce a file that you could import in the versa driver of the connected machine. (VERSA DIALOG-->(the folder icon in the right of the Viewer Tab)-->Select A print Job-->ADD...-->Select your file)

(2) In autocad, configure your plot. First Select the VersaDriver?.

(3) Configure VersaDriver? Properties (Plot-->Plot Device Tab-->Plotter Configuration-->VersaDriverAdvanced-->Properties).

(4) Go to Custom Properties to edit the power associated with each lines. The colors here match the colors in Autocad (it doesn't match the number of the pen, then Red is the Red in the driver). It's difficult to vizualize this as the order of the colors is completly different from the autocad usual order. (TODO: Might try to fix this by configuration of the CTB with virtual pens or virtual colors.)

(5) Important! If you want to send Vector instead of raster you'll need to set the Plot Options to Nothing (aka no Plot with plot Style and no Plot Object Lineweights). I send my graphic as a wireframe. (might be optional)

(6) Go on the versa driver of your connected machine, Import you drawing, be carefull with the height of the table. Start the plot.

 

NOTE: prepare to have a nice fireplace smell on your hairs and dresses :) 

 

a_lex (partially taken from Enrico and Mark notes