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Tips for Better Designs

Designing for kerf accomodation

Posted by Amanda Dimova on

Kerf is the amount of material that gets removed when cutting. With any sort of cutting whether by saw blade, water-jet, or laser cutting, some amount of material is removed to make the cut. Laser cutting kerf is approximately .01cm wide - pretty small if you think about it! This means if you draw a square 1cm wide, the square will end up 9.99cm wide and the hole will be 9.99cm wide The remaining .01cm was burned up by the laser.  This is not precise, the kerf can vary based on temperature, humidity, and a number of other factors. It's a...

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Vectorize Bitmap Graphics

Posted by Outfab Team on

Here's a situation we see happen from time to time:   You come up with a great idea and draw it out in Photoshop or Gimp. You upload your design but then find out it doesn't work with our set up due to the vector/bitmap issues we talked about in the previous post. But it blows your budget to have us fix it, plus you really want to figure it out yourself (trust us, we know how that is!)     The following instructions will show you how to turn a bitmap drawing into a vector graphic that is ready...

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Vectorize Real Drawings (Inkscape Version)

Posted by Laser Tech on

Did you know you can take any drawing and convert it into a vector graphic? You don't need expensive software, you can download InkScape which is free!   I've designed the instructable to walk you through the most efficient manner to make the best laser etch possible. Most people do not realize the importance of contouring to make something stronger, adding a loop, or using pure black & white graphics for etching (as opposed to grayscale).   Use any old camera to take a photo of the artwork. I hate plugging the scanner in and importing scanned photos when I...

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Go Quote Yourself

Posted by Amanda Dimova on

How To Quote Yourself for a Custom Laser Cutting Project Ready for some math?  We promise it's easy. We get a lot of quote requests which is unnecessary since our service is designed to let you know exactly how much your project will cost before you even start.   How to calculate PER PIECE pricing, before tiling onto a page   Projects for laser cutting that have large variety of shapes inside are a little harder to calculate the specific PER PIECE cost, so here's a good example of a rough per-piece estimate:    Select the piece you want to...

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Fillet Sharp Points

Posted by Laser Tech on

Most people think you can just draw anything and it will laser cut just fine, and it's true the design will cut out, but how strong will it be? How can you make it stronger? Will the people who use it be disappointed or surprised at how it holds up?Acrylic is a brittle material and much more delicate than the metal charms average consumers are accustomed to. But there are many little tricks you can do to make your project more sturdy, now we will focus on FILLETS.Filleting - Fillet (pronounced FILL-it, not like a fillet-o-fish) is the action of...

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