Laser College
Class #302 Using the Vector Tray


There is nothing quite like making your own product. With the vector tray you can purchase raw material from P. Graham Dunn and cut out your own designs. You may use the vector tray to engrave magnets, pocket coins, name badges, bookmarks, price tags, promotional items, Christmas ornaments, and much much more. The process is not very difficult to learn, but requires you to understand what vectoring is and how to instruct the laser to operate in that way.



Most of the engraving you have likely done in the laser program has been raster engraving. Rastering is when the laser moves back and forth across the material or item it is engraving on and fires off the laser to burn little dots at a time. Imagine that instead of an ink jet printer that makes fine little dots of ink with every pass, you are using a laser to burn those dots. A laser can operate in another way as well in which it follows the contour of an object. This is called vectoring. With the laser running you can vector cut most any shape. With the red light on, you can use the vectoring process to "draw" an outline with the laser light. Other machines that vector include plotters, matte cutters, and vinyl cutters to name a few.


Vectoring on a laser requires that you use a Vector Tray to lift the material off your laser bed. There are a number of vector trays available for purchase. Gravograph makes a tray that is very durable and holds the material against adjustable rulers. This tray is about $500. P. Graham Dunn offers a tray in the laser program that is less durable and has no rulers to line up against, but is about $100 in cost.




Basic Vectoring Demo Video
This video shows you how to make a vector file for laser engraving on Alder (wood). The instructions start form a blank file. Further down on this tutorial page you will find links to various project files that already have the settings saved.

http://www.youtube.com/v/eAC0l50ooQM...&feature=playe