Laser Cutter Tutorial

Safety First

- It is very easy to start fires with the laser cutter, never leave machine alone while cutting

- The laser cutter can also produce dangerous fumes (e.g. chlorine) if used with improper materials. Never cut PVC, or other chlorinated plastics.

User Laser cutter for 

- Cutting acrylic, wood, paper and foamcore. You can not cut metals with 100W laser cutter.

- You can raster (image) engravings into above materials as well as glass, stone, slate, etc.

Driver Software
You can use either fab modules or CorelDRAW software for laser cutter.

Fab modules

CorelDraw Software
- Import 2D .dxf files, Postscripts files and general pixmaps
- All the lines in 2D design sign should have minimum width hairline ("0.04") to be preserved as "vector" cuts
(lines/arcs). Wider lines will be automatically rasterized.
- Line colors are mapped to different laser speeds, powers, and PPI by the CorelDraw laser cutter driver.
- Load or import your drawing into CorelDRAW and change the paper size to the dimensions of the laser cutter. "Layout...Page setup", page size should be 32" x 18"

Procedure 

Step - 1: Turn on Laser Cutter 

The switch is in the rear-right of the unit. The cutter takes approximately 30 seconds to power-on/boot.

Step - 2: Clean Lens

When the cutter is used with a dirty lens, particles can ignite and destroy the lens. So it is important to clean the lens before using laser cutter. Follow this procedure - 

- Unscrew the three thumbscrews and remove lens assembly.

- Soak cue-tip with one or two drops of cleaning liquid and gently clean the lens using it.

Step - 3: Set bed to focus height

 If not properly focused, the laser cutter won't properly cut. This will results in a poorly cut part, as well as produces lots of extra material residue and gas, which is especially problematic with acrylic and other plastics.

- Put the sheet you want to cut on laser cutter bed.

- Bring the laser cutter head near to center of your cutting area.

- Put the plastic focusing tool below the laser cutting head.

- Increase the height of the bed until the head touches the shoulder of plastic focusing tool. Press "Select" to toggle between Fast and Slow z-adjust and use Up and Down arrow to move laser cutter bed.