Ninja Guide

Nina Guide to the Laser Engravers

Set your coordinate system origin to be the top left of the 24" by 18" page. Do this by making sure that View-->Rulers is selected. Then, click and dragging the resize button at the top left of your document just underneath the document tabs.

When changing the dimensions of your object, it is important to identify whether you want to change both the width AND the length or change one or the other. In order to preserve the ratio of the object, you must click the padlock button just to the right of the width and length boxes.

There are two ways to make a circle in CorelDraw. One way is to press the 'ellipse' tool on the left-hand side of the page and click and drag where you want the circle to be. Then, change the width and length of the ellipse to be the same value and press the padlock button to lock the dimensions. The other way is to hold the 'control' key when placing and dragging the ellipse, which snaps the shape into a circle.

To draw a horizontal or vertical line, select one of the line drawing options and hold shift after clicking your first point.

To adjust the page size of the document (24" x 18" is our default). Follow Layout--> Page Setup, ensure the units are in inches, and change the width and length boxes to whatever value you desire.

In order to align shapes and text, follow Object-->Align and Distribute, and choose your preferred option

Doubling the DPI will increase the print time by a factor of 4. Thus, it may be worthwhile to start at 300 DPI if you are not working on a final product. The difference between 600 and 1200 DPI is inconsequential and is not recommended because of the speed sacrifice. Manual recommends 400 DPI, might be a hot call

Almost always choose bottom-up rastering so that the direction matches the laser's airflow. This way, smoke will not be pulled across a part of your piece that you've already engraved.

When setting up a print, it is important to consider how to minimize the cutting time of the job. -Make a video showing how to orient something well

When you select the focus setting, the laser will move to its "park" position which is about 1" down and 1" to the right of its home position. Sometimes, the laser will be focused at a lower height than the workpiece and would hit the workpiece if it moved to "Park". To prevent this, hit "Stop" before hitting "Focus" and you will be able to change the bed height without the laser moving.

Color Mapping:

1. the RGB values for the colors need to be exact. I.e. for red, the values must be 255Red/0Green/0 Blue
2. You can also add new colors by adjusting the sliders on the left side of the display menu and then clicking the Plus Symbol button
3. Always leave air-assist checked. It is a vector only function that will blow air at the piece and clear the flammable smoke from the laser.
4. The order that the colors are displayed on the right-hand side of the screen is important. The laser will always start at the top color and then work its way down. Note that the values do not move with the colors so you must move the colors first and then change its values.
5. Raster color mapping can be incredibly efficient if you want to engrave columns of text over the full bed. By changing each column to be a unique color and having all of the raster values to be the same, the laser will engrave one column at a time instead of traveling all the way across the bed. This is incredibly more efficient.
6. Color Mapping is the most efficient when there is a large amount of white space between engraving objects.
7. Even in color mapping, all raster operations are completed before any vector operations occur. Also, all color mapped raster operations occur before regular raster operations

Speed and Power of a raster cut can be adjusted on the fly with the dashboard. This can be helpful for experimenting to get the right settings for a material that you are unfamiliar with.

In order to manually set a temporary home position

1. Press "X/Y OFF" and then Press "GO" to disable the X and Y axis.
2. Move the laser head to its desired position (use the pointer as a visual locator aid)
3. Press "Set Home" to establish the new home position
4. In order to return the laser to its default home at the top-left corner of the printer bed. Hit "Maintenace", "Down Arrow" and then "GO" to select "1. Resore Home". Be sure that the focus is high enough that the autofocus plunger won't collide with the outskirts of the bed.