Lasers
We have 3 types of laser cutters for general purpose fabrication. They are the Glowforge, Universal Laser System (ULS), and Kern. We also have an LPKF ProtoLaser in the PCB lab for making circuit boards. Info for that one is located under the “PCB Lab and Soldering Stations” to the left. The lasers are a potential fire hazard and must be monitored for the entire time they are active. If you leave a cut unattended, a crew member will cancel your cut. In the off chance that you cut does catch fire, there are small spray bottles filled with water next to the lasers. Open the lid, spray the fire with the water. Each laser is capable of cutting, scoring (sometimes referred to as vector engraving), or raster engraving. Laser cutters accept a vectorized image, generally an SVG.
Cutting is exactly what it sounds like, using the laser to slice through the entirety of the material located on the print bed.
Scoring is using the laser to cut partially into the material along a single path. This may be used to do things like write text, add arrows, or add fold lines to your material.
Engraving works like scoring in the sense that it only cuts partially into the material. It differs from scoring in the sense that it carries out these partial cuts from the input of a rasterized image. While the laser travels directly along the specified path when doing vector scoring, it works more like a traditional printer when doing raster engraving. The laser moves back and forth along the x-axis, rapidly turning on and off to “print” an image onto the material below. Once it finishes one line it moves up a very small fraction of an inch before repeating the process. This process produces can produce very refined images but takes a long time to do it so plan accordingly if you have any tight deadlines.
Glowforge
The Glowforge is the least powerful but most user friendly laser so it probably sees the most student use. Cuts are specified via a web app and users can see a live preview of the material that they’re going to cut from so it’s a great way to use up scrap material.
ULS
The ULS has a larger print bed and more power than the Glowforge but has a few quirks that require
Kern
