Vector, Halftone and Halftone Off

No doubt there has been a time when you have been left to your own devices and let loose on the lasers, only to find that your lovely image that you stole from a Google image search without a second thought won't transfer into Trotec, which means only your red outlines actually cut. and now you wasted all that material. Oh dear!

Well never fear, for I am about to introduce you to 3 little radio buttons found within the printing preferences in Trotec.



Radio buttons are called that as there is only one option that can be pressed at any one time, harking back to a day of after market stereos and old TV sets! (the more you know!)

Anyway - back on track!



What do these buttons mean?

It Is important that you select the correct function for your job, and as there are only three to choose from, there isn't that much to learn!

Vector
Lines Only - This means that all the strokes with a weight of 0.01mm with the correct colour values will be seen by Trotec, and can either mark or cut!



Note: the preview on the left of the image shows pretty text that mirrors the job - all colours and curves!

Halftone Off
Engraving and cutting - Use this function to engrave your lovely fills, and cut your pretty lines! Engraving using this function produces a smooth even engrave, and can only run from a Vector fill.



Note: the preview on the left of the image shows a gray scale image to replicate your job!

Halftone on
Engraving and cutting - Similar to the halftone off, but with Halftone on, you are able to engrave gray scale rasterised images! So that is all things stolen from Google, a photo from your iphone, and even sketches that you have scanned in!



When you deselect all radio buttons - the display changes to resemble the image above, and you get a new halftone tab open at the top of the page..but we wont really need to bother with that :) .

So to conclude!

Vector - Lines for marking and cutting

Halftone Off - Engraving Vector fills, and Vector lines for marking and cutting

Halftone On (no buttons selected) - Engraving Raster images, and Vector lines for marking and cutting!

Happy Lasering

Lasering on two sides of your stock

Here is a simple file to help you set up your jobs for lasering on both sides of your stock material.

This process has been proven with the creation of coins, tags, badges among other things and looks pretty tidy!

The premis is simple - create a jig that is symetrical, and center your work to it.



The image shows two artbords, one for the front, and one for the back!

The time spent setting up the file will give you a better result, and make the whole process smooother!

Laser Allignment

In this post, we wil be looking at the best way to allign your work to the laser cutter.

The reason for this post in the first place is due to the miss-allignment of the table, especially on our Speedy 500, but the benifits of this are two fold:

1 - All your work fits onto the material as you planned.

2 - The laser cutters do not get damaged by cutting into the rulers.

The only thing that will differ from normal lser usage is the time spent alligning your job to the material, all done within Trotec, and using the arrow keys on the laser cutter. Spending the additional minuite in settining up the job can save hours in the long run by aliaviating the hasstle of recutting jobs!



Firstly, place your material in the center of the bed, and focus the laser as normal.



Using the red arrows on the laser cutter, move the laser head so that the allignment beam is on the top most right hand corner, as sort of seen in this picture!



Press and hold the right arrow so the red dot follows the materials top edge. If the allignment beam is off, move the material accordingly. Re check the edge after every time you move the material. If you deem nessesary you can fix the work to the bed with masking tape.



This video shows the process - look carefully for the allignment beam!

Happy with the allignment? Move the laser so that it is sat once again at the top left of the material, this will allow us to start the job from this position.



This image assumes that the image has been sent to print from illustrator, and our job is in the cueue in Trotec. Trotec has been opened and connected using the function keys.

Once that Trotec has conected, you get the red crosshairs appear in the same position that the allighnemnt beam is in - in this case, at the center of the laser cutter's bed.



This image shows the placement of the job once we double click it from the cueue, placing it in the default position of the top most left hand corner. You may also notice that I have activated the WYSIWYG command, which shows us a preview of the job.



This is more like what we want to see.

With the laser in the correct position, click and drag the job below the crosshair, Trotec is also pretty clever with this, and snaps the job to the crosshair!

Further to this, we can use the zoom tools to check and double check that the work will fit onto the material.



Make sure that WYSIWYG is active, and use teh zoom tools to focus in onto the area of the job that you are concerned about.

Use the arrow keys to find the edge of the material, and crossreference to see if the work will fit onto the material. At this point, some further adjustments may be required, moving the job fractionatly to the left or right,up or down!



What the laser looks like with you check the job via trotec!

Also - ensure you have a 10mm bleed on the job so you dont have this problem in the first place!



The laser running the job after all our hard work ensuring the allignment.



The completed job still on the laser cutter bed.



The job out the laser, completed with no missing edges!