Laser Cutting/Illustrator

Illustrator Laser Cutting Guide

Choose the correct laser cutter based on the material and its maximum cut size.

TROTEC SPEEDY 400

Located in the Digital Modelling Room (Room 160, Building 202)

Maximum material size: 900mm x 600mm x 12.7mm

Can cut: Strawboard,  Plywood,  Acrylic, Leather , Potentially other materials upon request

TROTEC SP500

Located in the DBE Makerspace (Room 114, Building 418)

Maximum material size: 1245mm x 710mm x 12.7mm

Can cut: Strawboard,  Plywood

Download the template

Illustrator Laser Cutting Template.ai

File Setup

Import your work into the template

Ensure that your objects are at the appropriate scale.

The Laser Cutter cuts at 1:1 scale. For example,

if you need your models at 1:100, they should be scaled down by 0.01.

Having trouble with Scale  |  Try a scale converter:

https://www.ginifab.com/feeds/cm_to_inch/scale_converter.html

Use File > Place... to import any work you already have into the template

Layers and Colours

There are layers already setup in the template to help you organise your work. However the layers do not set your line colours.

To change your line colours, select the elements you want to change. You can use the pre-set Swatches in the top right to quickly change the colours.

Make sure you have the Fill and Stroke correctly selected.

For Cut and Etch lines you want no Fill.

For Engrave you may want Fill

Engrave works for the entire grayscale

Stroke

Set Stroke Weight: (bottom right of screen) for Cut and Etch lines to 0.25pt

For Engraving, the laser will engrave all black areas. The stroke weight will directly affect the thickness of your lines, so set them to whatever you want.

Be aware that small stroke weights may not appear on your work post laser cutting if the lines were too thin.

Nesting

Move elements to fit within the artboard of your chosen material size. If you need to use multiple sheets, duplicate the needed artboard.

Nest your design, placing each element close together (2mm minimum distance between parts) or if possible, sharing cut lines.

Remove Overlapping Lines

To remove overlapping lines in Illustrator:

Do Cut lines and Etch lines separately. You don't need to do this for engraving

Select all objects with the same stroke colour by selecting an object, then, in the top bar, click Select > Same > Stroke Color

Now in the top bar click Object > Group (Ctrl + G or Cmd + G)

In Pathfinder Window (Shift + Ctrl + F9 or Shift + Command + F9) click outline

Now change the Stroke back to 0.25pt

Finally in the top bar click Object > Ungroup (Shift + Ctrl + G or Shift + Cmd + G)

There is no tolerance for overlapping lines in Illustrator. So it is a good idea to confirm that the overlapping lines have been removed by temporarily moving an object

PDF Export

File > Export > Export for Screens

Select the Artboard(s) you want to export

Change the format to PDF

Click Export Artboard