Laser Cut Your Fabric

STEP 1

Prep your Fabric & Load Machine

Our laser cutter bed has a max size of 24” x 36” so we want to prepare the material to fit within this footprint. Ideally, if we can minimize the length of material used, it is worth condensing the cutouts in Illustrator to optimize the space.

STEP 2a

Load PDF into Illustrator

First we will load the build PDF into Illustrator. It will ask if we want to import all the pages, to which you should accept.

STEP 2b

Separate Elements

Once the artboards have been imported, check if you would like to move the components around for better nesting. To do this, you need to first EMBED the image of each page then UNGROUP the components, then RELEASE CLIPPING MASK. This will give you access to the raw elements.

STEP 2c

Change Color and Stroke

With the elements selectable, select all the lines and update their stroke to 0.001 and a color of [255,0,0]. This will ensure that the laser cutter interprets them as CUT lines instead of ENGRAVE or RASTER.

STEP 2d

Print to Laser Software

With the line width and color specified, we can now move the design from Ilustrator to the laser cutting software. To do this, we print the design just like a regular printer (CTRL + P) and select the laser cutter where it asks us to select a printer. We can then open up the laser cutting software to update the settings that are specific to our materials.

STEP 3

Update Laser Settings

To make sure that we cut through the material properly, we have to adjust three settings: Height of the laser, Power, and Speed. We’ll do the first one by selecting a material and updating it’s thickness. Navigating to the Materials tab, select Fabric > Denim. At the bottom of the page, update the thickness of material to 0.010” and hit the big red “SET” button.

Now in the Manual Settings tab, locate the settings for RED colored lines, and adjust the POWER and SPEED to both be at 100%. SET these settings and close out of this window.

STEP 4a

Turn on the Compressed Air

Located behind the machine, turn the air compressor handle to be in line with the pipe, indicating that it is flowing.

STEP 4b

Turn on Vacuum

Additionally, on the right side behind the laser cutter, there is a power switch for the vacuum, which must be in the on position before running the laser.

STEP 5

Check Position of Artwork

With the lid open, the position of the laser cutter head is indicated with a low power laser pointer. Using the positioning tool in the laser cutter software, position the laser pointer in the top left corner above your artwork to ensure that they will all land on the fabric. Do the same with the bottom right.

STEP 6

Run Laser Cutting Job

With our artwork positioned and our settings configured, we are ready to start running the machine. The Green play button in the top right will start the running of the job.

STEP 7

Remove Cut Fabric

Once the laser has stopped, give it a few moments to remove some of the smell of the cutting and then lift the door to remove the cut panels. If some parts are still slightly connected, use scissors to careful cut them free. Clean up all the remaining loose cutoff pieces.