ACCESS How to get access to the laser cutters
SAFETY Don’t break the machines or your self
FILE SETUP Save time and energy
SEND FILES Get your files into the UCP
LASER CUT Use the UCP to initiate and complete the lasering
LASER CUTTER MANUAL
LASER LAB MANUAL
LASER CUTTER INSTRUCTIONS ACCESS
1
1 TRAINING IS REQUIRED• You must take the laser training prior making your first reservation• Training is required for ALL USERS of the laser cutters - students, staff, and faculty• Training takes place every Saturday at Noon, and the First Sunday of the Month at Noon
2 MAKING RESERVATIONS FOR THE LASER CUTTER• To use the laser cutter you must make a reservation with IT in person - in Room 406 at 320 Newbury - or by phone at (617) 585-0191• We do not accept appointment requests by email• Time slots are two-hours each• You can have one appointment per day per person• You can make reservations only for yourself (not for others)
3 CANCELLATIONS / NO SHOWS• If you will be unable to make your appointment, please call IT at (617) 585-0191 prior to the time your appointment is set begin• Please do not miss your appointment without notifying IT• You are allowed 3 no-shows/nop-calls, after the 3rd no-show, your priveledges will be revoked for the remainder of the semester• If you are 30 minutes or more late for your appointment, your appointment will be canceled and you will be marked as a no-show• You must check-in with IT (room 406) and leave your IT to access your appointment
4 POLICY ABUSE (LOSING ACCESS)• We know you are busy, and that life happens. Please do not abuse the cancellation/late policy• If you are found to be continually late or cancelling your appointments, or otherwise booking appointments “just in case” we will revoke
your access to the laser cutters
5 ABSOLUTELY NO FOOD OR DRINKS IN THE LASER LAB - EVER - FOR ANY REASON
LASER LAB MANUAL
FAIR & FRIENDLY USE ACCESS
2
FAIR & FRIENDLY USE POLICIESClean laser beds after usePlease remove all tape and other hold-down materials from the laser cutterUse rubbing alcohol & paper towels (available in the IT office) to remove any leftover residue
CLEAN LAB AFTER USEWe encourage students to leave any remaining useful materials in the workbench for another student to use but please use the recycle bins to dispose of any nonreusable materialsPlease don’t just shove everything leftover into the storage area.
NO CELL PHONE USEPlease focus on the tasks at hand and be considerate to your fellow students.
NO FOOD OR DRINKSPlease don’t eat or drink anything in the lab, any form of spill could cause significant damage to the machines that will result in possibly long periods of maintenance time.
REMOVE YOUR FILES FROM THE COMPUTERThe computers in this lab are not subject to the account deletion policies to help students retain previous laser settings, but never the less, please remove your files from the computer after use, or else the hard drive will fill up and will have to be wiped without notification.
ALWAYS ASK FOR HELP IF YOU ARE UNSURE WHETHER THE LASER CUTTER IS OPERATING PROPERLY!!!!
LASER LAB MANUAL
FIRST THINGS FIRST SAFETY 1 SAFETY FIRST
• The laser cutter must be supervised by the user at all times during cutting operations.• It must not be left running without constant supervision by the person who is scheduled to be using the laser cutter.• These are powerful and potentially dangerous machines, and materials could catch fire very easily and quickly.• Unattended operation of the laser cutter is grounds for indefinite suspension of laser cutter privileges.
2 AUTHORIZED USE ONLY• Students, Faculty, and Staff must be trained by a member of the CODER Staff to use the laser cutter.• Training takes place every Saturday at 12:00 Noon, and the 1st Sunday of the month at 12:00 Noon.
3 APPROVED MATERIALS• Wood (and any untreated wood product) 1/4” or LESS• Cardboard (recommended)• Chipboard (recommended)• Museumboard• Paper• The following plastics ONLY: Acrylic, Delrin, Mylar, PETG, Styrene
4 RESTRICTED MATERIALS• Metal: of any sort or thickness• ANY Foam Core• Glass: Silicate and Non-silicate, or any other kind• ANY Poly or Polycarbonate (PC, Lexan) Plastic OR ANY Plastic that is not one of the approved plastics above.• PVC• Vinyl: Including FLOOR TILES, “PLEATHER,” ETC• Fiberglass• Carbon Fiber• Printed Circuit Boards• Teflon
Using restricted materials is grounds for indefinite/permanent suspensionof laser cutting privileges. They are restricted because they are
3
LASER LAB MANUAL
LASER CUTTER INSTRUCTIONS
4
1 USE 2D FILES THAT ARE DRAWN or SCALED TO OUTPUT DIMENSIONS.• Draw or Scale your linework to the size you want it to come out of the laser cutter• You will be tempted to print to scale - we strongly recommend against this
2 FOR CUTTING and VECTOR ETCHING, SET LINEWEIGHTS TO 0” or HAIRLINE• VECTOR is when the laser follows the linework as if it were tracing.
With simple line work and for all cutting, this is the fastest method.• RASTER should be used for ETCHING thick lines, or intense patterns such as a large brick wall at a small scale.
3 COLORS = CUTTING ORDER• There are SIX INDEX colors that the laser cutters can use and those colors are:• BLACK (black/white in AutoCAD)• RED• GREEN• YELLOW• BLUE• MAGENTA• CYAN
INDEX COLORS IN AUTOCAD
18 Inches
32 Inches
BED SIZE THE BED SIZE is 32 by 24 inches. This is the MAXIMUM “printable” area.
Your material should be cut down to 32 by 24 inches.
SETUP Scale your drawing the size you require it to come out of the laser cutter. This is SAFER and more effective than printing to scale.
You MAY want to draw a bounding box to help you keep
18 Inches
32 Inches
SETUP You can also use “corners” (as shown below) set at the appropriate distances.The advantage of this technique, is that you won’t send unnecessary data to the UCP.
SETUP In this example RED is the cutting layer, BLUE is the primary etching layer, and GREEN is the secondary etching layer.
SENDING When your lineweights and colors are set, send the linework to the UCP by “printing” to the VLS 6.6
1. Select VLS 6.6 from the “PRINTER/PLOTTER” Dropdown.
SENDING 2. When the below message pops-up, select “USE THE DEFAULT PAPER SIZE USER-DEFINED LANDSCAPE
SENDING 3. Under “WHAT TO PLOT” select “WINDOW” Then select the “WINDOW” button.
SENDING 4. Draw a window around only the linework you want to send for that job. It must fit within an 18” x 24” window, but CAN BE SMALLER.
SENDING 5. DESELECT “FIT TO PAPER” Set PLOT SCALE to 1:1 (you may need to use 1’0”=1’0” if your file was originally in AutoCAD Architecture.
SENDING 6. Select “PROPERTIES” next to the Printer/Plotter name Select “CUSTOM PROPERTIES” in the pop-up window that appears.
SENDING THIS IS THE SETTINGS INTERFACE FOR THE UCP
YOU NEED TO SET Z-AXIS, POWER and SPEED for EACH COLOR YOU ARE USING
SENDING 7. FIRST, hold the CTRL key and select each color SECOND, set the Z-Axis to ON THIRD, Enter the THICKNESS OF YOUR MATERIAL in decimal inches (shown is 1/8th inch = .125) FOURTH, CLICK the SET BUTTON
SENDING 8. Set the POWER and SPEED for each Color and then click SET HERE we have set POWER to 100% and SPEED to 35% for the RED LAYER USE the MATERIAL EXAMPLES on the WALL as a starting point for determing good power/speed settings (thanks, Andrew!)
SENDING Here we have set POWER to 50% and SPEED to 100% for GREEN etching.
SENDING And here is BLUE set to 30% POWER and 100% SPEED for a lighter etch.
SENDING 9. MOVE YOUR CUTTING LAYER to be AFTER your ETCHING LAYERS. This will help keep your material in place, so that the etching is as accurate as possible.
Drag the color/layer UP or DOWN the list by clicking and dragging on the name. The LASER CUTTER will run IN ORDER from TOP to BOTTOM. CLICK OK when DONE.
SENDING 10. AFter CLICKING OK in the SETTING dialogue, you will see the PROPERTIES POP-UP again.
CLICK OK. BUT THEN!...
SENDING 11. WHEN YOU SEE THIS POPUP: It is asking if you want to SAVE ALL THE SETTINGS YOU JUST MADE as a custom printer. The answer to that is probably yes!
SENDING 12. TURN OFF ALL THE PLOT OPTIONS UNLESS you want to raster, then leave “Plot Object Lineweights ON”
