Laser Cutter

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LASER Cutter workshop introduction

This page documents the usage, experience and troubleshooting of the Laser Cutter at Raum 3 (Gru). If using the Lasercutter, please use this resource for not making any irreversible mistakes, and even more importantly, share your experience with the rest, making the trial and error process much faster and more efficient.

NOTE: This wiki is very English/North America-centric. Please add international links.



Health and Safety

  • Materials Safety, MSDS

FORBIDDEN MATERIALS

A list of forbidden materials to use with our lasecutter. When buying materials from for example Modulor, their technical specifications are always described. Crossreference those with the list below. Additionally, any material creating excessive flames, "boils" when cutting, or produces lots of small fragments are not to be cut. If you see any such behaviour in the cutter, please stop, and do not continue using such materials. 

* polypropylene
* polyethylene
* polycarbonate
* PVC
* nylon
* PMMA
* PVDF
* ECTFE
* PFA
* FEP
* Macrolon(TM)

Laser cutting of plastics is potentially hazardous due to the emission of fumes.

For example, polypropylene, polyethylene and polycarbonate all generate benzene, a carcinogen, during laser cutting. Polystyrene releases styrene, while PVC emits hydrogen chloride. Many plastics also give off ultra fine particles, plus carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. In addition, the filters that are commonly used to clean up the fumes that originate from laser cutting of metals will not remove the fumes produced from plastics. These points indicate that workers involved with laser cutting of plastics may potentially be exposed to unacceptable levels of hazardous substances. Hence, the need for employers to install the correct ventilation systems so that exposures are controlled adequately.

Exposure to fumes given off during the hot gas welding of plastics such as PVC, nylon, PMMA, polycarbonate and polypropylene is not normally likely to give cause for concern. However, there may be a health risk where the welding takes place in confined spaces in which the welder's head is close to the welding operation, and where ventilation is restricted.

Of greater concern is exposure to hazardous fumes during hot gas welding of fluoropolymers such as PVDF, ECTFE, PFA and FEP, which can cause influenza-like symptoms known as "polymer fume fever". For this reason, it is recommended that these materials are not welded above their recommended weld temperature and that a good standard of local exhaust ventilation should be used.

Laser cutting of fluoropolymers should be the subject of a rigorous risk assessment.

Another fluoropolymer that can cause polymer fume fever when overheated is PTFE, which is used as a non-stick coating for hot plates that are used for welding other thermoplastics. For this reason, it is therefore recommended that PTFE-coated hot plates should not exceed a temperature of 270°C.

Basic Principles of Operation

Software and Creating "Printable" Documents

In general, the creation of files for LASER-cutting is quite straightforward. You must adhere to a few simple principles, depending on your application.

  • Vector Cuts: You must use a vector-based graphics program to generate vector objects. These objects represent the vector cutting path of the laser.
    • Line Width/Thickness = 0.001 mm / 0.001 pt / 0.001 in / Hairline. (only 0.001 will be recognized as vectors!)
    • Colour-mode is RGB.
    • Ensure, as you edit, that you are editing the colour/thickness of Path/Outline objects, not fill coulour. The fill coulour is interpreted by the VL200 Printer Driver as a region to raster. Only vector paths or vector outlines will be properly interpreted as a vector cut.
    • Use Valid Colours:
  • Rastered Images/Areas
    • All non-vector objects, composed of one of the above 8 colours, can be "printed" as vector etchings. (e.g. A Black-and-White JPEG
  • VersaLaser Driver

Hardware

  • Universal LASER, Inc.
  • VersaLASER EN DE
    • VL-200 Base Unit --- 16”x12” work area (406mm x 305mm)
    • UL-25 25-Watt LASER Imaging Cartridge


Materials

Where to buy, and what kind of things are good for lasercutting:

What NOT to do with a laser cutter

  • You CANNOT cut metals. If they're very very thin, then maybe, but in principle not. You can etch some soft metals (e.g. Aluminium works very well. The etched areas go white).
  • You CANNOT etch uncoated steel. If you want to etch steel, you need to use a special etching compound. Apply this to the surface before printing, and any LASER etching (raster or vector) will result in a permanent black image in the steel.

what you can do with a laser cutter

Collective Experience with Materials

Please add to the list your experience with materials. Firstly, upload an image, and name it "LaserCutter_maetrialName.jpg" so that things keep in order. The image should be shown as a thumbnail, but have the resolution such that it makes sense when expanded to larger size.

Image Who? Material Supplier Cost Thickness Power(%) Speed(%) PPI Result/Comments
Philipp Lucite,Perspex, White and Transparent Modulor 40 - 60 Euro/m^2 3mm 100% 2% 500 Cuts All the way through, doesn´t melt, quiet a lot of smoke. Etching can be done by lowering the speed - I had good results with 3.5% speed. line thickness of vector paths should be set to 0.001 Pt
Markus Polyester Modulor 50x30cm 4 Euro 1mm, with 1cm high knobs 50% 50% 500 After printing 4 times the same it cuts through, higher power causes fire The brown lines, which are created look also good
effie marmor udk hardenbergstr. mülleimer 5-10cm, 0Euro 5-10cm 95% 10% 1000 very fine lines Printer Menu> Advanced> Black and White not Halftone
Jens Veneer (Deko-Furnier) Modulor 160x280 mm 2,5 Euro (Leftovers) 0.1-0.2 mm 60% 5% 500 Cuts easily through, slow speed because of fine forms power still can be reduced. the laser destroys some of the material so in order to make fitting parts, each outline should have a certain offset.
Felix stoff=cloth/fabric Das Stoffhaus 20x30cm, 2,50Euro ca 0,3 mm 95% 1% 1000 very fine lines


Ivonne li-ob
li-unt
rechts 		Schleifpapier
Seide
Schleifpapier 		80%
10%
60% 		50%
50%
80% 		P 180

P 100


Sascha Thin cardboard Modulor Matt payed :) approx. 0.5 mm 50% 20% 500 First etched the map into the paper (burned areas got white), then cut out the shape. Needed two runs for cutting. Didn't start to burn at any point.


Michael Schmitz Pappe 360g, black Copyshop an der Ecke Grunewaldstr. DinA4 - 90cents the sheed 0,5 mm 50% 50% 515 I wanted to make a relief and it worked out fine. A lot of smoke but no fire.


Ivy FoamRubber Modulor DINA4 app.80cents 2mm 10% 50% 500 30% cut through; easy to handle, quick result
Sascha Acrylic Modulor, Brose 3mm 44% 1% 1000 focus at approx. 1,5mm into the acrylic to get a good vertical edge
Sascha Chromolux Karton Modulor <1mm 33% 15% 1000 cut from the back side (mirror text etc.) to avoid burned edges
Jussi Klebefolie Modulor <1mm 10% 14% 1000 cut from the front, but not through the back layer so that you can easily then transfer the stickers

Prototyping Resources


LASER Cutting Links

  • LASERCAMM - Large-bed LASER cutters for Architects.


Troubleshooting

What if the LASER cutter crashes/freezes?

It has been known to happen. If you cannot power-off by software or using the power button on the LASER cutter, do the following:
  1. Quit VersaLaser software on the PC.
  2. Unplug USB plug from VL200 or Computer.
  3. Unplug VL200 Power Cable.
  4. Plug in VL200 power cable.
  5. Re-Connect USB cable.
  6. Launch VersaLaser software on the PC.
  7. Push Power Button in software or on the LASER cutter.
  8. Contact Jussi Ängeslevä or Matt Karau.

Vectors are not shown in the printer preview

  • Check, if vector width is set to 0.001
  • Check that your colours are "pure" colours. (ie. if you have defined something for Green, it must be RGB: 0, 255, 0 )
  • Check that your printer settings colour you want to print with is set either to vect/rast, or vect.
  • Check that your image is fitting / aligned to the cutting board size definition.
  • Check that you have vectors , and not rasterised bitmap that just looks like lines
  • Check that (even if opacity is set to 100%) the transparency-mode is set to "normal" and not to "multiply" or anything else.

Platform appears stuck

  • The platform of the machine sometimes seems to get stuck. In this case, switch it off, remove the platform (probably clean it a bit out) and put it back in again.

Incorrect positioning in print application

  • In order for the design to appear correctly positioned in the print application, the offset in Illustrator's print menu must be set to zero px

Links

Von „http://entropie.digital.udk-berlin.de/wiki/Laser_Cutter“
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