Laser Cutting from physicle masters

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Tracy Mann
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Joined: Sat Jul 13, 2002 1:28 pm
Location: Jacksonville, Fl.

Laser Cutting from physicle masters

Post by Tracy Mann »

My large Excelsior projects is going to require about 85 parts cut from various thicknesses of sheet styrene, or applicable materials suitable for laser cutting. I do NOT want to hand cut all of these parts by hand.

I've learned that I need to have the templates in an ai or crl format for a laser cutter.

My question...

I plan on making one styrene master for each part requiring dozens of copies. How do I turn a physical master into a file?

Thanks!

Tracy
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SpaceRanger1
Posts: 884
Joined: Mon Oct 20, 2008 4:56 pm
Location: Carrollton, Texas

Post by SpaceRanger1 »

Trace around outside of each part onto paper. Scan the traced outlines. Import scans into Adobe Illustrator as templates, then trace around each outline again to create vector art of each template. Save as Illustrator (.ai) files.

Illustrator has an autotrace function (called "Auto Trace," "Live Trace," or "Image Trace," depending on which version of Illustrator you're using), but it doesn't always work very well to capture complicated curve paths.
Michael McMurtrey
IPMS-USA #1746
IPMS-Canada #1426
Carrollton, TX

"Yup, exactly what SpaceRanger1 is saying. 100%" — seashark
DaveVan
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Joined: Sun Jul 26, 2009 10:53 pm
Location: usa

Post by DaveVan »

My commercial Laser cutter uses CorelDraw as file input. A few other formats MAY work but results are not 100% IMHO.
Easiest thing to do is create the part in CorelDraw to start with. You can measure down to .001 inch so it's much more accurate than anything done by hand.
I've cut hundreds of parts on my laser.....all generated in CorelDraw.
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