OUGD504 - Laser cutter induction

Laser cutter induction

For future reference and to utilise the facilities around the college for Design for Print, I booked myself into a laser cutter induction.

We received a booklet on how to use the laser cutter, and then had a go ourselves.

It was fairly straight forward, although there were a few things I thought were worth noting down:

• File format other than the Ethos Software is Adobe Illustrator files and vector images. NOT PDFs because they will not save it in vector format, this is only good for raster images.
• When opening an illustrator file, it's best to copy the design from that file once opened to a blank Ethos file to ensure that all the options are available (default settings available on a blank doc)
• Fonts are not saved on illustrator files, so be sure to create outlines on all text with consideration of stuff that may fall away within the letterforms.
• Be sure to pick the 'laser effects' preset when creating a new doc.
• For images, lower the raster stripe size for more intricate detail.
• Inverse the raster effect when working with acrylic as it goes lighter when engraved.
• The laser cutter is NOT drop in, but booking only.
• To pause the laser cutter at anytime, press the hand symbol button at any time during the job.

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While we were down in the wood workshop, we decided to ask Jake and Matthew about some of the facilities available to us. They told us that we would need to find out which machines would be of use to us and they would be happy to demonstrate and teach us how to use them.

Some of the machines available:

Radial Armsaw
A radial arm saw is a cutting machine consisting of a circular saw mounted on a sliding horizontal arm.

Surface / Thickness planer
A thickness planer (also known in the UK and Australia as a thicknesser or in North America as a planer) is a woodworking machine which is used to create boards that are of an even thickness throughout their length and flat on both surfaces.

Spindle Moulder
spindle moulder in the UK, is a stationary woodworking machine in which a vertically orientated spindle protrudes from the machine table and can be spun at speeds typically between 3000 and 10,000 rpm. Cutter heads may be mounted on the spindle. As the workpiece is fed into the machine, the cutters mould a profile into it. On some shapers, router bits can also be used using a special mounting adapter. The machine normally features a vertical fence, against which the workpiece is guided to control the horizontal depth of cut.

Router
A router is a tool used to rout out (hollow out) an area in the face of a relatively hard workpiece, typically of wood or plastic. 

Vaccum Former
Vacuum forming is a simplified version of thermoforming, whereby a sheet of plastic is heated to a forming temperature, stretched onto a convex, or into a concave, single-surface mold, and forced against the mold by a vacuum (suction of air).

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My favourite machine out of all of these are the laser cutter and the vacuum former, as I think that it will be a useful tool when creating packaging, such as blister packaging.