Epilog Laser Video

Summary

In this video tutorial, creator Dacia Monroe provides an in-depth walkthrough on using the Epilog Laser Mini. Covering crucial steps from setting up CorelDRAW files to cutting materials with precision, Monroe emphasizes key safety tips, including always working with a partner and ensuring proper machine setup for optimal results. She explains how to handle unexpected machine behaviors, such as flame control, and concludes with guidelines for cleaning the equipment post-use, ensuring its longevity and safety for future tasks.

Highlights

• The Epilog Laser Mini has an 18x12 inch working area and a 40-watt CO2 laser, suitable for cutting wood and acrylic! 🪚
• Safety first! Always work with a partner and never leave the machine unattended! 🚫
• Setup your file correctly in CorelDRAW, adjusting the size to match your material! 🖥️
• Master the art of importing graphics correctly, ensuring dimensions are accurate! 📏
• Understand the difference between raster and vector in laser cutting! ✂️
• Keep the laser clean and maintained for perfect operation! 🧼
• Handle emergency situations effectively, like unexpected flames! 🚒

Key Takeaways

• Always have a partner when using the laser for safety reasons! 👥
• Ensure the machine is setup correctly with the right material sizes and CorelDRAW settings! 📐
• Use tape to minimize engraving residue and protect your work piece! 🎨
• Make sure the laser focuses correctly by using auto-focus settings! 🔧
• Always test on scrap material to refine your settings! 🧪
• If a flame arises while cutting, stay calm and use the safety procedures outlined! 🔥

Overview

Unleash your creativity safely with the Epilog Laser Mini, a powerful tool for engraving and cutting wood and acrylic. With Dacia Monroe's guidance, understand everything from machine setup to creating your design in CorelDRAW, ensuring that every step is met with precision and care. Discover the balance between creativity and safety to keep your projects on track.

Learn how to maximize efficiency, reduce errors, and produce high-quality cuts through meticulous setup. Start your CorelDRAW journey by adjusting your document to the laser's constraints, and dive into importing and adjusting designs for perfect alignment. Take advantage of Monroe's expert tips on optimizing your CorelDRAW project for laser cutting, emphasizing settings and safety features.

Safety doesn't end with creation—ensure a thorough cleanup and understand the emergency protocols if things go awry. Dacia highlights essential maintenance habits and teaches you to tackle issues like minor flames with confidence. This video is your ticket to mastering the art of precision cutting while prioritizing user safety and equipment care.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction to Epilogue Laser Mini This chapter introduces the Epilog Laser Mini, highlighting its features and usage. The machine has a working envelope size of 18x12 inches and is equipped with a 40-watt CO2 laser, suitable for cutting wood up to a quarter of an inch and acrylic up to 3/8 of an inch. The chapter emphasizes the importance of proper machine usage, obtaining necessary approvals from instructors, and adhering to safety protocols by reading all warning labels.
• 00:30 - 01:30: Safety Precautions and Initial Setup This chapter emphasizes the importance of safety precautions when operating a laser. Key points include always having a partner present, never leaving the laser unattended, setting the air assist to about 20 psi to ensure proper airflow, and turning on the fume extraction system using the green on/off button.
• 02:00 - 06:00: Using CorelDRAW for Laser Cutting The chapter covers initial steps for using a laser system with CorelDRAW. It begins with instructions on starting up the laser system, such as locating and switching on the power button. The importance of masking tape in laser engraving is highlighted to prevent engraving residue on materials.
• 09:30 - 14:00: Printer Settings and File Preparation This chapter delves into the nuances of printer settings and the essential steps for effective file preparation. A significant focus is placed on understanding how to manage engraving residue, particularly the darker brown and slightly cloudy type, which can be mitigated using tape on the workpiece. This is an important technique for improving the quality of the engraving outcome.
• 14:00 - 16:30: Starting the Laser and Troubleshooting The chapter titled 'Starting the Laser and Troubleshooting' begins by instructing the reader to locate and double-click the CorelDRAW icon on the desktop to open the application. Once inside CorelDRAW, the next step is to start a new file. The initial task after opening a new file is to change its size, setting the stage for further customization or work.
• 16:30 - 17:30: Post-Processing and Maintenance This chapter discusses the post-processing and maintenance of laser equipment, focusing on the build area dimensions. The maximum dimensions for the x and y values are 18 inches and 12 inches, respectively, providing a build envelope of 8 inches by 12 inches. The chapter emphasizes matching the material size to these dimensions, and in the example, a piece of wood measuring six and three-quarter inches is used.
• 17:30 - 18:30: Fire Safety Procedures The chapter discusses the basics of manipulating and setting the size of a piece in CorelDRAW software. It starts by explaining how to adjust the size of a piece to a specific measurement, in this case, 'two and one quarter'. Following that, the chapter guides you through the process of importing graphics into CorelDRAW. This can include inserting a DXF file or a JPEG image. The instructions proceed by directing users to navigate to 'File' and 'Import' in the menu, and then search for the desired file's location to import it into the project.

Epilog Laser Video Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 this is the epilogue laser mini it has a working envelope size of 18 inches in x by 12 inches in y there's a 40 watt co2 laser and it's great for cutting wood up to a quarter of an inch and acrylic up to 3 8 of an inch in this video we're going to show you how to properly use the epilog laser mini be sure that you've been approved for use on the epilog laser and that your project has been approved by your instructor be sure to read all of the warning labels on the outside of the machine
• 00:30 - 01:00 and understand how to use the laser make sure that you have a partner with you at all times and make sure to never leave the laser unattended locate the air assist on the wall and gently rotate the knob counterclockwise a couple of turns until you see about 20 psi on the gauge then you should hear airflow starting into the system [Music] locate the green on off button on the front of the bofo fume extraction system and turn it on you'll know it's on
• 01:00 - 01:30 because the light illuminates and you'll hear the system start up if you're facing the laser system look on the left hand side for the power button turn the power button on then you should hear the system start up [Music] often when you're engraving materials you'll see some engraving residue if you don't use tape you can see here some
• 01:30 - 02:00 darker brown slightly cloudy engraving residue if you place tape on the work piece you can reduce this
• 02:00 - 02:30 locate the corel draw icon on the desktop and double left click that to open the coreldraw application and once you're inside coreldraw the first thing you'll need to do is to start a new file i will left click on this and this is going to bring us into a file first thing that we need to do is change the size of the file
• 02:30 - 03:00 now the size that you change here this is the x value which in the laser is a maximum of 18 inches and this is the y value in the laser that's a maximum of 12 inches so we have a build envelope area of 8 inches by 12 inches and this size the x size and the y size here should match the piece of material that you have available so in my situation i have a piece of wood that is six and three quarters by
• 03:00 - 03:30 two and one quarter so i'm going to set that to match the size of my piece after you have your piece size set you'll want to import graphics or you can create graphics inside of coreldraw but in most cases you're going to be inserting a dxf file or maybe inserting a jpeg image to do that we're going to go to file import and you'll browse to the location where you have your files
• 03:30 - 04:00 saved in this case this is a usb drive and you're looking for the dxf file so the first one i'll show you is called rastervector.dxf so i'm going to double click on that coreldraw is going to ask me how do you want to import this file and mostly what i'm looking for here are the units so this particular one is in inches it says that it's going to bring it in at a scale of one to one and that's precisely what we would want to do
• 04:00 - 04:30 i can look here and see that the original size is three inches in the x direction and two inches in the y direction and that's what it's going to make it inside of coreldraw so i'm going to click ok and then near my cursor if i look closely it gives me the width in inches 3.0 inches and the height 2.0 inches and then right below that it's really important to read these it says click and drag to resize and if i do that i'm going to lose that one-to-one import it's going to allow me to drag it to whatever size but it may not be a
• 04:30 - 05:00 one-to-one scale it says press the enter key to center on the page so that would center it in this file or i could press the space bar to use the original position and of course that's the original position in whatever other cad application you're in not necessarily coreldraw so i'll press enter and you'll notice that it puts it in the center of the page and it has everything highlighted for me so now that i have my object inserted my dxf file inserted i'm going to left click on the outside of all of this to deselect those items
• 05:00 - 05:30 i notice here that the g in engraving has been pushed down to the next line so in order to select that i'm going to go over to the pick tool make sure i have the pick tool option selected i'm going to left click somewhere on this text and i'm going to drag this little box over that way it moves the engraving the word complete there and i'll notice that it's not in the center so i want to move this now and i can left click when i have the four little arrows and i could place that i could eyeball it where i think the center is
• 05:30 - 06:00 or i can go up to the object menu select align and distribute and i can go to center to page horizontally and it will push it back into the center of the page horizontally for me okay in order to manipulate these objects to get the laser to do what i want them to do rastering as you can see here is engraving into the material so i can select the speed and the power at which it engraves into
• 06:00 - 06:30 the material and vector is going to be cutting into the material and we'll talk in just a minute about hairlines and how those are used to cut objects but first i want to convert this vector is cutting text into a curve that i could then select to be actual cut through there so to do that i'm going to left click again i've got my pick tool activated i'm going to left click on that text and then i'm going to right click somewhere on it select convert to curves and that's going to convert the outside edges
• 06:30 - 07:00 into some sort of curve that i can manipulate later on and then what i need to do is i need to change the infill i don't want it to be black but i do want to see an outline there so in order to do that i'm going to go over to my color palette and if i left click on the white color it's going to fill in the text with white but if i right click on the color black it's going to outline that in black and then you'll notice at the top it has
• 07:00 - 07:30 created what's called a hairline now anytime corel draw has an object that's labeled as hairline it will cut on the laser so it will cut all the way through the object so that's what i expect to happen with this text is that it's going to cut all the way through the object because it's selected as hairline the raster if i select this text notice it's at a point value it doesn't have hairline selected so that's just going to raster or engrave on the material now the objects
• 07:30 - 08:00 on the outside need to be cut so i'm going to left click that object and i'm going to make sure that it says hairline now it has picked up that property from autocad sometimes it will come in with a point value and if it has a point value assigned to it then that means it's simply going to raster that instead of cutting it so i want to make sure that says hairline that way i can go ahead and cut that and i'm going to left click and deselect if i select all the objects and i move them from the
• 08:00 - 08:30 center point with the arrows i can move them into a position that best suits the location on the material that i'm using so if i if i don't want to cut right in the middle i can move it to the left and if i move it to the left that would allow me to save all of the material over on the right hand side and if i want to save that material then what i want to do is add a line a hairline here so that it will cut that material in half and i can use it again later
• 08:30 - 09:00 and in order to do that i'm going to move over to my tools i'm going to select the two point line i will move to the top edge left click and drag hold control so i can get a straight line come back down to the bottom and you'll notice that as it creates that line it has created it at a point five so coreldraw and the laser is going to recognize this as a raster but i really want it to be a hairline so i'm going to left click and select hairline from the menu
• 09:00 - 09:30 and then i can go back to my pick tool and left click outside to deselect or i can press the escape key at this point i probably want to save the file so i'm going to go to the file menu and select save and then i'm going to save it into the location where my dxf files have been stored i will give it a unique file name in this case i'm going to call this raster dash vector and you'll notice that it is assigning that a cdr or a coreldraw file so i'll click save
• 09:30 - 10:00 and now i'm ready to set up my printer properties the printer in this case being the laser so i'm going to go to the file menu i'm going to select print and then i'm going to go to preferences and within the preferences box this is where i set up the parameters for printing so in the top left i have an option for the resolution and in the majority of cases for rastering you're probably going to stay in the 300 to 600 range
• 10:00 - 10:30 the higher the resolution the more pulses or burns of the laser it will do which can increase your time and you may not be able to tell much of a difference so probably in most cases you're going to be between 300 and 600. down the bottom left-hand corner under options i do want to select auto focus because i want the laser to move to the material utilize the plunger to determine where the material location is and then focus itself if you do not select
• 10:30 - 11:00 auto focus here then you would need to use the manual laser tool which can be found in the cabinet under the job type if you want to do both raster and vector then you will select combined if you would like to do just raster you can left-click and select raster and as you do that you'll see that vector settings are grayed out and not an option if you select only vector you'll notice that the raster settings have been grayed out and not an option but if you want to do both then you will select combined
• 11:00 - 11:30 the raster setting is remember the engraving setting and in order to determine which speed and which power to use you can utilize the manual it's typically laying on the table next to the computer or you can go and download a digital copy from the internet but for this particular example i'm going to use a speed of 75 and i will leave my power at 50. it may be beneficial to use a sample
• 11:30 - 12:00 piece of wood or a sample area of your wood or acrylic whichever you're using whatever type of material that you're using it may be beneficial to do a couple of different tests and then you can note how deep the cut goes you can't really control the depth of the engraving except by different speeds and different powers so it may be beneficial to test those out on a sample piece before you finish your final product you do have an engraved direction for
• 12:00 - 12:30 top down or bottom up the manual can provide some information about which one of those might be better better excuse me image dithering is different ways to control the little pulses so i will change this and you'll notice that the preview changes and you can see that some of these dithering patterns are different and you can experiment with those as well as your rastering but again make sure that you have enough material to do that testing vector size this vector is the cutting
• 12:30 - 13:00 again consult the manual make sure that you have the correct vector settings for speed power and frequency for the type of material that you're using so in this example i'm using quarter inch wood that's pretty thick it is red oak so i'm going to use 10 or below and then i'm going to put the power all the way up and then for wood on the frequency it says 500 hertz in the manual so i'm going to make that 500 hertz and then one of the most
• 13:00 - 13:30 important things that i need to set here is the piece size the piece size is the material size that you have in the laser and that size should match what you have in coreldraw so in this case i'm going to type in 6.75 by 2.25 and then i'll click ok and quickly you want to make sure that under the printer it says epilogue engraver win x 64 and the location is the ip address
• 13:30 - 14:00 192.168.3.4 i always click apply and then you'll click print and as you click print you should glance over at the laser and look to see that the job has actually been sent over to the laser to start the laser you'll press the green go button or want to delete a job press the button that has the trash can icon if the laser's been sitting idle and hasn't been used in a while
• 14:00 - 14:30 especially if the lab is cold you'll need to run a test part first to warm up the co2 laser to do this you can grab some scrap from the construction lab or use some additional material that you might have notice in this video the laser starts but it doesn't immediately begin firing and rastering the image it may take a while to warm up after you press the green go button the laser head will move above the material above the work piece the bed will raise which pushes the plunger
• 14:30 - 15:00 back up into the laser the laser has a sensor the sensor determines the offset height between the laser and the piece of material which this is adjusting the auto focus and then the laser will begin it will do a raster first and then a vector remember that a raster is engraving and a vector is cutting please note that this video has been increased to 500 percent of its normal speed
• 15:00 - 15:30 after the print job is complete you can raise the lid remove the work piece and then complete any post processing such as removing tape sometimes when starting a print job the material height will be higher than the
• 15:30 - 16:00 plunger and the plunger will run into the material work piece bending it over as you see here if that happens what you'll need to do is press the reset button then press the x y off press go to disable the x y and then use the arrow keys to lower the bed until the work piece is below the plunger then press reset after you've finished your laser project it's now time to clean the machine in order to do that begin with a wet rag slightly damp lift up the rails wipe underneath
• 16:00 - 16:30 wipe on top wipe off the plunger being very careful not to touch the actual laser lens the final step in the cleanup process is to dump the crumb tray locate the door on the front using both hands open the front door locate the black tabs and flip both of those open slide the tray out take it over to the trash can and dump it wipe it off really well with a paper towel and then return to the machine it's very common when using the laser for a small flame
• 16:30 - 17:00 to appear when the laser cuts or engraves the material a small flame is usually okay however if that small flame starts to get out of control be sure to press stop turn off power to the laser and see if the flame goes out if the flame gets larger grab the fire blanket next to the laser open the flap on the bottom use the two black tabs and pull the blanket out draping it over the laser and see if the fire goes out if not be
• 17:00 - 17:30 sure to call public safety at 2222 monitor the fire and if necessary leave the room for safety