ONLINE LASER CUTTING SERVICES PLATFORM

Online Laser Cutting Drawing Guidelines

 

Our automated pricing system will require your drawing in a particular format.

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General Requirements

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1. Scale must be 1:1.

2. Dimensions must be in millimeters.

3. Only upload drawings – do not upload drawings containing additional info such as text areas, dimensions,annotations  & empty objects.

4. All objects  for a specific process are on a layer. For example, put cutting on blue and engraving on red

5. If your file contains text, ensure it has been converted to Vectors

6. Line breakages - Ensure that the outer lines of all drawings are closed.

7. Hatches and infills must be removed.

8. Stroke: use thin lines (less than 0.1 mm or hairline)

9. A separate drawing is required for each part requiring cutting.

10. All drawings should be 2D

 

Accepted File Formats

Our preferred file formats are listed below

• dxf

• dwg

• ai

 

Layers and Colours in the Drawing.

Please ensure that your drawing has correctly identified which lines are for cutting and engraving. The drawing software you use should be able to do this by setting the colour or layer name.

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• In .dxf files -> the layer colour is optional

 

Once your drawing has been uploaded a preview will appear. This will identify the colours in your drawing and show the process required for each line.

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Maximum and Minimum Sizes

The maximum dimensions of your drawing can vary depending on your choice of material. Please refer to table below:

Laser Cutting

• Stainless Steel - 1400MM X 1000MM

• Mild Steel - 1400MM X 1000MM

• Aluminium - 1400MM X 1000MM

• Perspex - 1300MM X 900MM

• Rubber- 1300MM X 900MM

• Cork - 1300MM X 900MM

 

Waterjet Cutting

• All Materials - 4000MM x 2000mm

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Also, small and lightweight parts can be easily lost or damaged during the cutting process as they are more likely to move around the bed. These sizes will vary depending on material.

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You can still have small components cut if you have them secured to the sheet with small ‘tabs’. Tabs are small interruptions in the component’s outline.

• 0.5 mm is basically enough for a tab

• Use one tab for very small components (<10x10 mm)

• Use two or three tabs for larger components (up to 50x50 mm)

• Use even more and possibly wider tabs for components that are larger than 50x50 mm

When drawing, also take the kerf width into account.

 

Double lines

All double lines will need to be removed prior to upload. If they are not removed, the line will be cut twice and will reduce the quality of the parts.

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Nesting Drawings

Nesting is a procedure where a number of cutting parts are laid out to maximise cutting efficiency.

Do I need to nest my drawings?

There is no requirement to nest your drawings. We can do this for you.

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Ordering multiple items

Where you require several pieces of the same item, we will nest these to offer the optimum price by minimising material wastage.

All you have to do is select the desired quantity at point of order placement, the website will do the rest for you! This often enables pieces to be more cost effective. 

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Sharing cut lines

You may wish for two or more items to share cut lines in an attempt to reduce costs (less material wastage). This is not advisable and will give rise to less accurate parts as they are more prone to small movements on the cutting bed.

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Kerf width

The kerf width (or cut loss / cut width) varies according to the material and can be found in materials. For most materials the cut width is around 0.2 mm.

The smallest holes we can create are the size of the laser’s cut width.

The laser will cut in the middle of the drawn line. When you draw the lines, half of the cut width will disappear on either side. An example with a cut width of 0.2 mm:

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