Laser Cutting from physicle masters

Tracy Mann · Post by **Tracy Mann** » Tue Sep 02, 2014 4:07 pm

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

SpaceRanger1 · Post by **SpaceRanger1** » Wed Sep 03, 2014 10:59 am

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.

DaveVan · Post by **DaveVan** » Wed Sep 03, 2014 2:34 pm

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.