AutoCAD Guide

Setup Document in mm

Draw a reference plane rectangle at 1:1 scale to match the size of the material in mm. We recommend setting your document to 1300x900mm so you do not exceed the machines cutting area.
Leave a 5mm border as the laser cannot reach to the extreme edges of the cut bed.

Make Model to scale: 1:1 mm

Laser cutting Lines

Create a new layer and call it “cut”. Place everything you want cut into this layer. Set Colour to True colour RED (255,0,0) and make line weight as thin as possible.

Vector Engraving

Create a new layer and call it “Vector Engrave”. Set the line to True colour BLUE (RGB 0,0,255) and make line weight as thin as possible.

Text

Text to be cut or engraved which has a specific font must be converted to polylines to be vector engraved.
To do this:
>Select the text>Express tools>Modify Text>Text explode
(delete lines that appear throughout text after applying this method, (TIP) Select lines after applying text explode then apply regular explode allowing you to quickly select the lines to delete. Remember to rejoin lines after cleaning text).

Nesting components

When arranging several parts to be cut from a single piece of material please ensure that there is at least a 2mm gap between each design. As a general rule the gap should be at least the thickness of the material e.g. on 3mm acrylic; the gap between each design is advised to be 3mm.

Join all vector lines

Please join all lines to make them continuous polylines for laser cutting. This will help speed up laser cutting and make a smoother line. We recommend making in polylines if possible but if you are working in lines try and connect them before sending us your design.
To join lines Type Join>Select source object or multiple>with objects selected press enter>lines will now be joined.

Curves and Arcs

All arcs must be circular arc segments (polylines). The laser cutter cannot cut Bezier curves, ellipses or elliptical arcs.

Reduce the amount of points in your design

Help declutter you design by making sure there are no duplicate drawings overlapping or on top of one another.
Use the “Overkill” command.
To use the overkill command:
>Type Overkill into command box
>Select objects you want to apply it to
>Check Optimise polyline segments, Combine colinear objects that overlap, combine collinear that are end to end and maintain associative objects
>OK.

Save File: Select File>Save as.

Version

Please use the following name format for your files: Your surname_material_colour_thickness_quantity.