TFDL Makerspace Training

This page provides information about the laser cutter services in the Taylor Family Digital Library.  Please read this carefully before submitting your job.

What equipment and materials do we use?

Ref. PCmag.com

We use a Glowforge Basic for the cutting.  Materials are restricted to 3mm Baltic birch and 3mm Clear acrylic that must be purchased from the library (prices below).  The useable area on each tile of material is 370mm x 270mm.  Exact thicknesses may vary.  We recommend laying out your designs to use sheets as efficiently as possible to reduce waste.
 

Refer to the Designing for Laser Cutting tab for the most recent accurate measurements of material thickness, as well as some suggestions on how to create good designs.  

Who is eligible to use the laser cutting service?

The TFDL laser cutter service is available to people with a @ucalgary.ca email address.  We prioritize academic projects.  We also reserve the right to refuse requests at our discretion.

How much does it cost?

Completed projects must be paid via our online portal prior to pick up.

Resource:

The library's laser cutter may only be used for lawful academic purposes. 

• No one is permitted to create material that is:
  • For commercial purposes.
  • Prohibited by local, provincial, or federal law.
  • Unsafe, harmful, dangerous, or poses an immediate threat to the well-being of others.
  • In violation of another's intellectual property rights. For example, you cannot reproduce material subject to copyright, patent, or trademark protection.
• The library reserves the right to refuse any laser cutter request.
• The library cannot guarantee output quality or stability, nor confidentiality of designs.
• Completed jobs must be picked up by the individual who submitted them, using valid ID at the first-floor service desk in the TFDL. 
• Materials not picked up within 30 days become the property of the Library.
• We make no guarantee of turnaround time on requests and may not be able to provide an ETA on completion or any information on your place in the queue.

While we want all cutting requests to be successful, our staff do not have the resources to modify/repair problems with a design.  Users are responsible for the quality of the submitted designs.

Please submit your request using our online form. 

Once there, you’ll be requested:

1. your name,
2. UCalgary email address,
3. design file (DXF, PDF, SVG Formats)
4. and the selected material.

Our staff will contact you to discuss any problems with your design, and possible additional fees.  Once a cost estimate is provided, you will be asked to approve the job prior to it being cut.

Payment is processed using the library's fines system.  Once the job is completed, you will be fined for the cost of the service.  After the fine has been paid, your completed job will be available for pickup at the Taylor Family Digital Library main service desk, during library open hours. 

Rush orders cannot be accommodated.

Using Existing Designs for Laser Cutting

There are many free online designs available if you do not wish to create something from scratch.  Here are a few sources for free laser cutter designs:

• Makerdesignlab.com
• DXF Downloads.com
• Laser-templates.com
• Craftsmanspace

Please bear in mind these designs may not work if they were designed for a different material, or rely on precise kerf adjustments, particularly if you modify the size (scale) of the original design.

Creating Your Own Designs

Our laser cutter can perform cuts, scoring, and etches. 

• Cuts go all the way through the material and follow a path. 

• Scoring also follows paths and can be used to make simple linework designs. 

• Etches are used to take rasterized images or solid areas of vector art and burn them onto the surface of the material. They are also the most time consuming, as the laser has to pass back and forth many hundreds of times per inch to create the image.

All of the paths needed for cutting and scoring need to be vectors (not raster). Vector artwork can be created using software such as Inkscape, Adobe Illustrator, Fusion360 or Rhino3D.
 
 

In this example image, Raster images (shown in blue) will be burned, Vector paths (shown in red) will be cut.
Most laser cutters use different colours to differentiate which paths are for cutting, and which are for scoring or etching. Make sure paths for cutting are all set to red. Scoring should be green, and etching should be blue or grayscale. It is recommended that prior to being added to the design, images are converted to grayscale. This will give a better sense of what the final output will look like.
 
 

Kerf and Material Thicknesses

Even though a laser is very precise, it is burning away material any time it makes a cut. This small amount of material removed by the cutting process is called a kerf. Even a small kerf can cause parts to fit loosely.

Kerf varies from material to material, depending on thickness and density. For example: a 20mm x 20mm square cut from our 3mm Baltic Birch measures 19.85mm x 19.85mm. Kerf is calculated by subtracting this difference and dividing by 2. This gives a kerf of .075mm. Because this is such a small value, designs do not need to account for kerf unless you require extreme precision. 
 

If you are intending to make a box (or similar multi-piece construction) and glue the pieces together, accounting for the kerf will likely not matter. If you want to create a box held together by friction, it is recommended you modify your design for the kerf.
 

Additionally, the material thickness should be accounted for when creating interlocking joints. For instance, if our 3mm Baltic Birch actually measures 3.47mm in thickness. To create perfectly meshed finger joints for our “3mm” Baltic Birch, the fingers need to be extended 0.47mm + 0.075mm (additional material thickness + kerf), and then widened by 0.075mm (kerf).
 
Current kerf and material thickness values:

Tips:

• Do kerf adjustments and fillets / chamfers last.
• Make a copy of your design prior to applying any kerf compensations. If you change materials, or the kerf changes, it will be easier to make new kerf compensations if you can quickly go back to your original design.
• Be sure to align and embed any raster images in your design. If the image is not embedded, it will not be available for etching.
• Although many formats are supported, we have found DXF files consistently provide the best results.
• Stroke width is ignored. Ctrl + Y in illustrator will show just paths.  
• Unless using a special font for stencils, text should be etched. Do not cut text (because letters like e’s and o’s will only show as a silhouette and be missing the pieces inside the letter).