Learning to use the laser cutter.

During this week, what we learnt was to use the laser cutter in order to cut different fabrics or other materials. We were given a class in which we learnt some of the basic things such as never forget to turn on the vacuum and select the different parameters for make the laser work properly.

The first thing that needs to be done when cutting with the laser cutter it´s to try different groups of parameters in order to see which one is the one that cuts through our piece of material the best. In order to do this you have to change the power, frequency, speed and focus . Once you have done at least four different configurations, you will start the process for the laser to cut or just rip a little the material. Since the laser had been used previously by one of my partners to cut her piece with the same fabric I was going to use, it was not necessary for me to do this step.

In my case, I wanted to make the laser go over two different sections in my piece. First of all, I wanted an inner section to be just rip a little in order to be used as a guide when sewing, and another section that would actually be cut. The parameters I selected for the inner part, which was set for be the first one to be cut in order to avoid mistakes , were: 100 for speed, 5 for power, 2500 for frequency and 0 for focus ; for the outer part, which was going to be cut I chose: 50 for speed, 40 for power, 2500 for frequency and 0 for focus .

The last step was to put the figure at the upper left corner of the laser cutter.

After having set the software of the laser I needed to put the fabrics in the cutter. In order to do that I used an orange fabric, and try to measure the space I was going to let the cutter to work with, because this was the last thing I had to write in the computer. After doing that I taped the fabric to the laser cutter surface and then moved the laser beam. Once I had done all that I turned on the vacuum and let the laser to start its work.

The laser took less than 20 seconds to do all its work, so once it finished I turned off the vacuum, I removed all the fabric and put it back with the rest of the fabrics, and finally I took my piece of fabric, that can be seen in the photo.