Laser Lab

The laser lab hosts two laser cutters; a 60 and a 75 watt C02 Laser Cutter both with Air-Assist.The laser lab room 105 is located inside of the fabrications lab room 106.

The laser lab is open Monday - Thursday: 9:00 am to 9:00 pm // Friday 9:00 am - 4:00 pm // Saturday 10:00 am - 4:00 pm // Sunday 10:00 - 4:00
Each Student may only sign up for a 1 hour session on the laser cutter. Once this session is complete and the student has paid they may sign up for another 1 hour session when time is available. There is no limit to the number of sessions a student can sign up for in a given week. Any abuse of this system will result in the immediate loss of privileges of the use of the fabrications lab.

To reserve time on the laser cutter students and faculty must use the Laser #1 Online Sign-Up and/or Laser #2 Online Sign-Up

There are 3 procedures that must be done prior to laser cutting.

1. Turn on the laser exhaust system.

2. Turn on the air-valve connected to the lasers.

3. Properly "Z" the laser.

Software
For use of the laser cutter, the UNM SA+P supplies students with the latest Adobe Suite and Autodesk programs available in the laser lab and the computer lab.
The laser cutter will accept Adobe Illustrator and AutoCad files, and must be on the appropriate template and layers or graphic styles.

Acceptable Materials:
Chipboard up to 4-Ply.
Museumboard up to 1/8” thick
Basswood and Hobby Plywood up to 1/8” thick
Limited Acrylics up to 1/4” thick (Absolutely no PVC material, such as Lexan, or other Polycarbonates) Styrene up to 1/4" thick

ACRYLICS, STYRENE AND BASSWOOD ARE STOCKED PRODUCTS. NO OUTSIDE ACRYLICS OR STYRENE WILL BE ALLOWED.

Important:
If cutting acrylic, the material must have some type of label stating that it is in fact acrylic. If the material does not have this, it will not be cut or engraved. The appropriate acrylic material is stocked in the fab lab.

Cardboard is prohibited from the laser unless prior consent from a fab-lab supervisor is given. Single ply chipboard can be cut on the knife plotter located outside the laser lab.

Illustrator Basic Vector Cutting/Scoring

Open the Illustrator template (there are 3 versions for CS, CS2, and CS3)
The template is sized to the bed of the laser cutter (32” x 18”)
Go to FILE > PLACE your work into the template.
Make sure all lines are inside bounding box and are as close as possible to maximize the material.
Ungroup everything go to OBJECT > UNGROUP and repeat at least 3 times.
Release any clipping masks go to OBJECT > CLIPPING MASK > RELEASE CLIPPING MASK repeat a few times
Select and place all cut lines in the cutting layer and assign them a “MAGENTA CUT” style from the graphic styles menu. There is also a CYAN Perimeter cut as well. This is for cuts that make up a perimeter around other cuts or scores, and is meant to be the last cut performed.

Illustrator Raster Fills/Engraving

Follow the same instructions as above.
When setting graphic styles, black will be the deepest, 50% gray will be half and white would be no engraving
You can use the preset raster fills, or just a grayscale.
Your file may be rejected if there is too much raster fills to be engraved for this is a very time intensive way to score with the Laser Cutter

AUTOCAD Cutting/Scoring:

Initial Setup

Open the laser template. The year (2000, 2004, 2007) should correspond to whichever version of AutoCad you are using.
The template is sized to the bed of the laser cutter (32” x 18”)
Copy and paste your work into the template in model space.
In PAPER SPACE, zoom extends to view your work.
Using the VIEWPORTS toolbar, scale your work so that it fits inside the bounding box.
Arrange the pieces to be cut so that you use the least amount of material.

Drawing Prep

Set all the line weights to 0.00 mm or make sure they are all by layer and set to the layers provided.
Erase all overlapping lines. Overlapping lines can cause your file to be cut incorrectly.
Procedure: type EXPLODE > select all > type OVERKILL (make sure the “ignore” options are unchecked) > select all

Any text in the file needing cut should be one of the following fonts: ISCOP, ISOCT, MONOTXT, PROXY, SIMPLEX, TXT.

Layers
The template already has the necessary layers and corresponding line styles set up but you must assign your work (lines circles, etc) to the appropriate layer.

For questions contact a Lab Supervisor:

STAFF SUPERVISOR

Professional Intern/Fabrications Lab Coordinator: Stephen Mora

Email: sedmora@unm.edu

FACULTY SUPERVISOR

Fabrications Laboratory Director/Lecturer: Matthew Gines

Laser Cutter Templates

Zipped Illustrator File

AutoCAD Template (.dwg)

Resources

Laser Lab

STAFF SUPERVISOR