Laser Cutting Guide

The first thing you will want to do is place the sheet of wood in the top left hand corner of the laser cutter. In most cases, the sheet of wood will be lightly bent around the edges, which is a problem for the laser cutter. To help remedy this issue, we recommend taping down the frame as best you can (see picture).

Check and see if the mirror/magnifier is in the machine. If not, go ask Scott (very politely or he will rip you apart – be sure to be wearing safety glasses). Once you have the piece, place it in the holder and tighten the screws located in the top right and bottom left hand corner.   Check the air flow gauge to make sure there will be air flowing into the laser cutter.  The laser cutter head must be a certain distance from the object it is cutting, which conveniently for us is about the height of the measurement ruler along the frame of the pit of the laser cutter. Take the white stick and place it next to the laser cutter and check to see if the ledge on the stick lines up with the box of the laser head. If the laser head box does not align (especially if the laser head box is too low), use the panel on the laser cutter to move the z axis of the laser head until they are about the same height.  

Okay, now onto the computer part. Open up the file called laser template which is part of the program called coraldraw.  

Once program starts, a pop up dialogue will prevent the program from opening. Just click “close” and the template will load. 

At this point, drag your DXF file of the thing you want to laser cut onto the laser template file. 

Move the DXF picture into the top left hand corner of the laser template so the part cuts where the wood is located. Then ungroup the design from the watermark in the bottom left corner of the DXF file. 

This will make deleting the watermark a lot easier. Once the watermark is removed, you are ready to complete the next step. Go to file  print and make sure everything looks like the picture shown. Click preferences