Laser Cutting

75 watt epilog laser cutter

• Manual: http://www.epiloglaser.com/downloads/pdf/mini_helix_4.22.10.pdf

workable materials

• Laserable materials: http://www.epiloglaser.com/laserable_materials.htm
  • for plastics:
    • thermoplastic delrin http://www.johnstonplastics.com/mech_delrin.htm
    • film mylar http://www.johnstonplastics.com/glaz_polyester.htm
    • thermoplastic acrylic http://www.johnstonplastics.com/glaz_acrylic.htm

Material size

• 18" by 24" (aka 45.72cm x 60.96cm)

cut from Inkscape

Engraving/rasters from Inkscape works, but cutting/vectors doesn't work natively. (epilog goes straight to "done")

Found a reference somewhere that this has to do with the printer driver subsystem. (reference?)

To cut an Inkscape design:

• set stroke style width to 0.001
  • .001 what? pixels can't be smaller than about .01 to still be seen
• File menu, save-as, pdf
  • check "convert text-to-paths"
• save
• open PDF file
• print as usual

eliminate the "fog" around things

Alexander's calgary flames had a fog around them - why? when looking how to print from Inkscape I found some info about this... some people called it a "halo"; didn't find out what the solution is.

Materials/Speed/Power settings

• 65/5/500 works for white and brown paper
  • little more oomph, I had to separate some spots manually, but they may have been out of focus