Laser Cutting

Hello! This is my FIRST ever blog!!! WOOHOO!💥💥😎

Today was my first ever time operating a laser cutting machine. I think I did pretty well for a first timer. Anyways for this blog, I will be sharing with you my learning experience as well as the things I have learned in laser cutting such as:

• Hazards and safety measures
• Materials used in laser cutting
• How to operate a UNIVERSAL laser cutter

1. These are the 4 important hazards and the respective safety control measures on the operation of laser cutting machine:

2. Below are the materials that can be cut/engraved using laser cutting machine in FabLab.

Below are the materials that can’t be cut/engraved using laser cutting machine in Fablab.

3. Below are the steps on the operation of UNIVERSAL laser cutter machine in FabLab:

a) Starting the compressor, turning on the laser cutting machine and fume extractor.

b) Importing a .DXF file to Coreldraw and modify the lines/fill for cutting and engraving.

c) Sending the coreldraw drawing to laser cutter software and setting the laser cutter power, speed, PPI in the software.

d) Starting the job on the laser cutter machine.

e) DOs and DONTs when there’s flame/fire on the material being cut.

4. Below is my Learning Reflection on the laser cutter activities.

Having done laser cutter activities, I acquired a few skills such as:

• Operating a laser cutter
• Use Coreldraw
• Housekeeping
• How to reaction when a material catch fire

Firstly, I learned what is a CO2 laser cutter and how it works. A CO2 laser cutter works by directing a very powerful beam from a CO2 tube to mirrors that bounces the beam which ends up at the carriage where it will go through a focus lens. Personally, I find this really really cool and it made me want to learn more about laser cutters in general.

Secondly, I also learned that there are multiple differences between raster and vector images. Vector's resolution is scalable while raster's is pixels. Vector images are what we see on our electronic devices. Vector file sizes are also very small while raster files are very large and they increase in proportion with the size of the image.

Thirdly, I learned that there is a difference between scoring and engraving. Scoring is simply a lower power cut, it follows a defined path using lower power. Whereas engraving moves the head back and forth, side to side, either between the edges of a defined path.