1. Presented by Mike Clarke

2. Who is Mike Clarke 40 years in the awards and engravingbusiness Manufacturers Rep since 1988 Has been selling lasers since 1991 Have been using CorelDraw since 1991 Featured writer for the EngraversJournal Constantly calling on Engravers andTrophy shops 3. My lines include Full line of Trophy Supplies such asresins, glass, plaques, and acrylics Custom Castings Full Line of solid wood and custommanufacturing Full line of engravingequipment, sublimation and engravingsupplies 4. My email ismike@engrave.ca 5. My website iswww.engrave.ca 6. Rules of the seminar I will be working in X5 I am getting older so my memory isfading Questions are allowed. Please do nothesitate to ask if something is not clear Oohs and aahs are allowed 7. My Overall Object Is to make you a better laser engraver I can only do this when you understandyour laser and how it works You can be an expert at CorelDraw but ifyou do not know your laser you willnever show your work to its fullestpotential unless you learn your laser 8. Overview of this Seminar Make you understand your laser better To understand how your laser and yourmaterial interact To make you more efficient with yourlaser Give you a better understanding of yourlaser and CorelDraw 9. What are we trying to accomplishwith our laser today What we need to know to make sure ourlaser machine is setup properly How is the proper way to test yourmaterial Why is resolution important to know Some important characteristics ofmaterials ie course and fine Speeding up your workflow 10. Most Important What I want to show you today and intomorrows seminar is how to tryminimize the amount of wastage ofmaterial I have spent countless hours destroyingproduct for the sake of trying to come upwith the best settings I have spent countless amounts ofmoney 11. Last week for example I spent $100 inmarble to test out a new feature Iwanted to try in Photo Paint I do not want you to make the samemistakes I made Just remember what I tell you is astaring point for you. You need topractice a certain amount to becomeproficient in what you are lasering 12. 3 Important points that need to bestressed when working with yourlaser Make sure that your laser machine isclean and in proper setup Never Trust what your lasermanufacturer says in terms of powersand speeds TEST TESTTEST. Successful laserengravers test the materials that theywant to work with 13. Keep our optics clean 14. Cleaning our Optics Check your lens and mirrors twice a day especially until you figure out what is agood schedule Look for dirt and scratches Use cleaner supplies supplied by yourlaser manufacturer Use good quality cue tips Dirty lens and mirrors will reduce yourpower 15. Bad Spot in the Lens 16. Clean Mirror 17. Coating is coming of the mirrors 18. Ruler Alignment Make sure that your machine is level You rulers need to be square with yourbeam so that your plates engrave wherethey are suppose to engrave The last thing that you want to happen isto have your machine cutting your rulersinstead of your material 19. Draw a Cross Hair inCorelDraw 20. Ruler Alignment 21. Beam Alignment 22. How do we know the beam is notaligned If you find that the engraving on oneside of you table seems to be a lotstronger or weaker than the other side 23. Beam Alignment Video 24. Make sure that our table is level 25. A laser engraver is in peak operatingcondition when the beam is consistentall around the table. That means that ifyou have a 25 watt laser the measuredpower from the top left side should beclose to the same power at the bottomright side or the opposite corner fromwhere the laser enters the can (Laser) 26. If you have two tables the second isprobably a cutting table make sure thatthe table is level from one side to theother. An uneven table will cause powerinconsistencies from one end of thetable to the other. 27. If you want to maximize your laser andproduce a consistent and good qualityproduct you need to make sure that yourmachine is in top running condition. What I will tell you today will require thatyour machine is running at its peakperformance 28. If your machine is not running properlythan your engraving will be at bestinconsistent and thus the product thatyou put out will not be the best that itcan be 29. Working with Resolution One of the things that I preach to mycustomers is that you do not alwayshave to use the default resolution thatyour laser is set to. Why is this? Most laser manufacturerswant you to always produce high qualityimages on your laser. Because this istheir goal than they will set theirresolutions to reflect this goal. 30. Default Driver Setup 31. The manufacturer always sets theresolution higher so that the quality isthe best it can be. Thus instead of tryingto explain why your need to use differentresolutions than the default setting is lefthigh. For this reason the engravingquality is good but the speed is not My rule for setting resolution is that youshould always use a lower resolutionunless your really need a higherresolution 32. Photographs Line Screen 33. To high of a resolution can hurtthe quality of your image 34. 400 and 1200 DPI Photos1200 DPI Photo 400 DPI Photo 35. When you are lasering imagessuch as text and line art at letterheights of a quarter of an inchthan a lower resolution is not asnoticeable but to you the timesaving can be enormous 36. Going from 600 to 400 Dpi canincrease your job time savingsas much as 30 percent 37. Different Resolutions on Plastic 38. You may notice a littledegradation in the images inthe past slide. This is more tothe fact that we are zoomed inon the image as opposed towhat you can see with your eye 39. Different Resolutions on Wood 40. The only issue that we see withline art style text and logosengraving different resolutionson wood is that at the samepower and speed a higherresolution will yield a deeperand thus darker image 41. Here are some photos 42. 200 DPI 43. 300 DPI 44. 400 DPI 45. 600 DPI 46. Photos In the case of this wood the higher theresolution the better the image is andthe more contrast that we can get whichgives us a good looking image 47. Sometimes images lasered at lowerresolutions are better than using higherresolutions. Thermark images are likethat. Also Oak Plaques Monochrome images do not sufferdegradation when we are lowering theresolutions 48. Monochrome Images 49. So What is Resolution? 50. What is Resolutioncontinued Printing resolution is the number ofprinted dots that are found in an inchbox. For example if we are looking at aprinting resolution of 600 DPI than weare printing 600 dots in the Y (down)direction and 600 dots in the X (across)direction. The lower the number the lessresolution that we are using in an image. Remember that a laser engraver is thesame as your laser printer 51. The difference between resolution printing ona normal ink jet or laser printer is that theprinted dots are smaller. Because of thesmallness of the dots a higher resolution willtypically yield a better printed image. On alaser some lasers can create some very smalldots but the problem in a lot of cases is ourmaterial. If our material is coarse than ourimage will be coarse. Materials such as wood(especially oak) are coarse and thus highresolutions are not as noticeable on them andin a lot of cases higher resolutions can ruinyou image on these materials 52. The important factor to remember is thatyour laser machine produces a certain sizeof spot size. For example my machineproduces a 1 thou spot size. However that1 thou spot size may become 10 thou onmy material because of what we call dotgain. If we place to many dots in that inchbox you will start to get a lot of overlap bythe burning dots. What you end up with is a massive of blob So a higher resolution is not always thebest 53. Way To Much Power 54. The more dots there are the more power you are going to inflict on your material. I say inflict because to much power is literally going to destroy your job 55. When do we need a higherresolution? If you are producing grayscale photos ina line screen If you are producing large fonts on highcontrast products such as laserengraving plastic If you want deep engraving such aswhat you get when you are engravinginto wood 56. A high resolution produces more powerand thus can warp material 57. Why do we want to use a lowerresolution It is faster plain and simple. If weengrave a job and it takes 4 minutes are600 DPI the same job at 300 Dpi willtake 2 minutes 50 % less where and tear on ourmachine Less power when we are engraving.Sometimes this will yield a better image 58. In this time of increasing costs we needto be always looking at saving money.The one way we can save money is byincreasing the output of our operation It is funny but I have been in thisindustry for 38 years. In the old days thewas engraving. For those that rememberwe relied on the manual engravingmachine 59. With the advent of the computerizedengraver the bottleneck in a lot of shopsbecame the trophies or the finishing ofour product With the advent of Resins figures ourbottleneck has become engraving again The laser has sped this process up butwe still need to increase our production 60. As far as I am concerned labor costs areone of the highest costs we deal with.The more we can speed up our laborprocess the more we can control costs. Many materials such as plastics withadhesives on it can speed ourproduction up Paring down our resolution can alsogreatly speed up our job and thus helpcut costs 61. Lasered Dot looks Oval 62. Types of Lens 63. 2 inch Lens 2.0 Inch Lens Standard lens on most laser systems. Multipurpose for both engraving andcutting applications. Recommended for raster engraving from300 DPI to 600 DPI resolutions. Produces a spot size of 0.004 to 0.007inches in diameter. 64. 1.5 inch Lens 1.5 Inch Lens Optional lens for High Resolutionengraving. Recommended for raster engraving above600 DPI resolutions. Recommended for small font or fine detailengraving. Produces a spot size of 0.003 to 0.0065inches in diameter. Good cutting lens for thin (