Hi Guys!

We've had a few changes this past week, and that means a few changes to the way things are running as far as the lasers are concerned.

We Finally got the new PCs installed, that means several things for you guys!

• Faster! 
• Overall things should be smoother now we're running on 4GB of ram and a faster Core 2 Duo processor! Sending files should be a breaze and not take as long to appear in Trotec.
• Better Looking!
• Yes they're still HP PCs but at least tehy all look the same and have matching ketyboards and mice ;)
• USB FUNCTIONALITY!
• Yes that's right folks, no longer are you bound to using online storage (I still recommend it though!), Anti Virus has been installed and Auto Run has been disabled, so for you guys that means that you have to open 'my computer' or  'file open' in illustrator' to get to your files on USB sticks! :)
• New version of Trotec Job Control has been installed. Again, this is a 64bit piece of software so will be taking full support of the new PCs. The software is new to me so ultimately we'll provide you new features as find them - initially however, you will notice they have implemented a timer feature - which gives you an estimated time of completion!!

New Filters in the Laser's Extraction units.

• No more beeping
• No more toxic fumes!
• Better surface finish
• No more toxic fumes!

If yuo notice continued beeping or visiable / smellable fumes contact a memebr of stff immediatly!

This leads me onto another big change - I'm going to get 'stricter' on the types of materials we can cut, in practive I think this will be a list of kknown materials we cannot cut!

So far we Have:

• Styreen
• Even though the new filters should get rid of the fumes, we aint gonna be cutting that no more! At all, EVER!
• Vynal 
• Any type, any thickness, any anything - no Vynal at all.
• MDF 
•  Ok some MDF we will cut, such as anything less than 6mm in thickness, any thicker and we wont be cutting it on the laser cutter. 
• Will add more as we find them1 :)

A big change is ahead of us as far as booking laser time, the use of technician time, and inductions.

We're to pilot a system where by you can self booking laser cutters without having to email and wait for a reply! 

We have grown out of what (the great) Google Calendars can offer, as there is a general increase in numbers of users from a range of courses and skill bases. 

We have identified an online e booking resource which allows you to book time on any one laser cutter for up to 2.5 hrs at a time. You will have to create an account, which you can log into to access the laser cutters calenders and assuming that you have completed an induction you can get yourself on a laser cutter all by yourself!

New users will still be required to contact me to arrange an induction. If you feel a need to have a technician support you at the beginning of your slot, you can do so by requesting their time, again, using the same online form.

Hopefully the move will be smooth and pain free, but lets assume there will be issues sent to test us from all angles!!

Well, one wall of text later! I think its going to be OK!

ED!

laser process tutorial

Have fun with this handy tutorial!



Start with a circle, choose a heavy stroke!





Click and drag whilst holding the alt key to duplicate, press the shift key to allign anchor point to anchor point.

Press Ctrl + D to duplicate the command, and make an array of 8 x 8.




Outline the stroke via the edit tab > path > outline stroke.



Window >  Pathfinder > merge

This joins all those individual shapes together!




Give the artwork a black fill





Ungroup the artwork and release the cliping mask, the artwork has two layers - choose one and move it to the right. Increase the size of the artboard if nessesary.



Ok - this image has it all!

All black data will engrave

All red data will mark

All blue data will cut

Cyan will cut




Black circles, blue outline



Black infils, blue outline



Blue strokes, cyan outline



Red srokes, blue outline



The four together - look how happy they are!



Speedy 300 firing its red laser at the card below




overview of the process



Hot close up action!



Might need a better camera!

Rotation-ation!

This outcome had several things that we can begin to use in the digital workshop from now on, Enjoy!

We finally got around to completing the Geometric pattern tutorial that was posted on here aeons ago - which we totaly pwnd and did a much better job at ;)



Following up from the preview of the rotational engraving samples - here be a rundown of the process with added pics for you all to see!



all starts here - select rtation attachment in the printing preferences, this will as for the diameter of the object, and the height of the document.



This is the view from trotec before we're ready to press go.



In trotec we have to define certain perameters for the functioon to work.


Alt + Ctrl + S will open up this dialog box allowing you to select rotation as an assessory



And this one - select no moves which should stop the laser head from colliding with the rotation axis. (Important!)

One thing we discovered was that your stock needs to be bigger than the artwork to allow for the laser to run off each edge without collisions.









The next step would be using different materials, and also marking and cutting which I whink would look great!

Tips for file creation

Make a fill from a stroke weight - Object  > path  > Outline stroke



For text, always create outlines! type > select outlines

Engraving pixel based artwork



Open your Jpg, bmp, png etc :)



Select the image, and choose embed to leave it as a pixel image or live trace to vectorise it.




Edit > convert to grayscale



Once grayscale, to achive a high quality engrave it may be neccessary to adjust the colour balance and increase the contrast.



Alternativly, use the live trace to vectorise the image. Use with caution as it can alter your artwork dramatically.

File Setup for Trotec Laser

Hello!

Just a friendly reminder on quick file setup for your lasering needs!





Make a new file! On startup of Illustrator you should see this dialog box, or File - New!

Specify the size of the artboard, either default paper size or a custom measurement.

You can also choose how many artboards you want to work with. (see additional Blog Entry!)



If your docuement isnt already set to RGB, do so by File > Document Colour Mode > RGB.



There is a chance that colour mode will not have changed within the colours pallet - so that will need to be updated.



All marking and cutting strokes to be set at 0.01mm

I'd reccomend removing strokes from fill engraves and text.




For strokes that are to mark, change to red 255



Cutting strokes change to blue 255



For fill engraves, change to black 0,0,0



If you have loads of empty space in your document - edit the artboard size as to reduce material and the overall size of your job.

Get your work as close as 1mm between objects for maximum efficieny.




Get really fancy - share lines from other parts of your drawing to reduce time and increase effiency in the lasering! You must ensure that you have no double lines in the document.



If you have double lines, use the direct selction tool to select and delete.



Save your work!

Current accepted file types are Adobe Illustrator CS5 or a PDF.

New laser makes speedy...entrance?

Sooooo.....

New laser time! management love us so they got me you a shiny new laser!






So yeah, lets welcome our new laser overlord - the speedy 300!

Tesselations

In this post I'll be looking at (again) repeat patterns. For some reason I just cannot get enough of them!



Some shapes made in Illustrator - The top row is of a simple kite shape, duplicated and set up ready for a batch of lasering later today!

the bottom of that picture you can see a 'Sierpinski Triangle', which is one of those shapes I can draw, but not have any clue as to the mathematical algorithms behind it. As Wikipedia puts it, a Sierpinski triangle it a confined recursion of triangles to form a geometric lattice.



Tessellation of a shape - maximising material usage!

Spherical Infinity:



There are quite a few variants on circular fractals, but this is one my puny brain could understand!

A progressional view of the creation of this shape.



Shape generation showed here with the lasered examples.