The smaller engravers like the one pictured above use a variety of things, and people experienced with larger CO2 laser cutters may be familiar with a piece of software called LaserCut - a combination CAD program and laser control that is serviceable, but closed (my copy even requires a USB security dongle, eww.)
LaserWeb is important because most laser engravers and cutters have proprietary software. The laser engraver used in the video is one of those economical acrylic-and-extruded-rail setups with a solid state laser emitter available from a variety of Chinese sellers (protective eyewear and any sort of ventilation or shielding conspicuously not included) but LaserWeb can work with just about any hardware, larger CO2 lasers included.
#Laser engraving software for mac how to
Whether you’re a hardcore member of the maker community, looking for a new cutter and engraver for your builds, or a hobbyist who wants to knock out some plaques and coasters for your friends, you’ll struggle to find a laser of this quality, for this sort of price.LaserWeb is open-source laser cutter and engraver software, and made a video tutorial (embedded below) on how to convert a cheap laser engraver to use it. The clever optics in the laser assembly make it possible to cut through materials all the way up to 15mm depending on the material in question. This device will run you just over $300, and for that, you’re getting some incredible cutting power. It’s not really much of a mark against the machine, but while it makes mention that it would be difficult to cut clear acrylic or plastic, it doesn’t mention the potential difficulties with lighter colors in general.Īt the end of the day, not only is it incredibly easy to set up and use the S9 Laser Engraving Machine, but it’s also a shockingly powerful cutting and engraving machine for the money that you’re putting into it. So, are there any downsides to the Sculpfun S9 Laser Engraving Machine? Well, if there's anything minor to say, it’s only that if this were aimed more specifically at beginners, it would have been useful to have more information about the specifics of working with certain materials. Either way, the machine can handle cutting acrylic sheets very quickly, as long as you’re dealing with a dark enough color or one that a blue laser won’t have trouble with. In the guide, it gives suggested settings to use on acrylic, but for some reason on the safe-materials sheet, acrylic and other forms of plastic are simply crossed out, likely because they give off toxic fumes when burnt. If you’re planning on using this in a domestic home rather than in a private workshop or something, then you’ll need to buy extra goggles for anyone who is planning on walking in.Īnother material we tried out was 3mm acrylic.
On that note, bear in mind that you, and anyone else in the room, need to be wearing the included safety goggles during the use of the device. It creates a lovely contrast between the image and the background, and it does it pretty damn quickly, so even on larger designs, it doesn’t take all day to get things done. Slate, in particular, is an excellent medium for this engraver. Besides, the resulting tower is pretty cute, and can at least be used for rolling characters with tiny D6s.Įxperimenting with other materials also produced stellar results. Of course, we did end up with a very small dice tower as a result, but that’s a limitation of the material more than anything else. Not only was this achieved very easily, but it was also possible to size the tower down to the correct size for our sheets of wood. We also tried out some more complex ideas, such as cutting a wooden dice tower design out of a piece of wood for us to glue together. One of the first things we tried was engraving some images onto blank coasters, and after a little experimentation, it was easy to get multiple different designs done without many errors. There is some fiddling when it comes to getting quality settings quite right for the image and material you’re using, but a lot of these results speak for themselves. With the speed and power settings from the manual, you simply enter them into the correct fields and hit start. The software allows you to simply take images and use various tools to convert them into usable engraving or cutting patterns. If you’re using the appropriate settings, you can easily get incredibly good results even on your first few uses of the device.
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