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New Lasercutter: Epilog Fusion M2 40
Machine status: Ready to use
In 2020, we upgraded our lasercutter from our old Epilog Zing 6030 to a new Epilog Fusion M2 40. It also uses a CO2 laser, so the materials that can be cut are the same, but it has a larger cutting bed size of 40 x 28 inches (slightly over 100 x 70 cm), and it's a 60 Watt laser, making it quite a bit faster than our old model.
We use Affinity Designer and Epilog's Mac driver to run lasercutter jobs natively from our Macs, instead of using Inkscape and VisiCut, which is not currently fully compatible with the new lasercutter. You can continue to bring SVG files created with your software of choice. We recommend creating them in Affinity Designer for best compatibility. When using Inkscape to create your SVG files it is important to save them as PDF, the PDF will contain all important information. If you use Inkscape and save your files as SVG then scaling errors can occur, this is an Inkscape specific problem and saving your SVG as PDF is the workaround to avoid those scaling errors.
Important Information:
Material list: Please refer to this list to see if the material you want to work on is suitable for the lasercutter.
Bringing your own material: When bringing your own material to lasercut/engrave it is important that the material is as level as possible. When using material that has bends the lasercutter may not be able to deliver a clean cut or engraving result because of the varying material height. When your material is very level and flat the lasercutter will deliver a very exact result.
Engraving on acrylic glass: When engraving something on acrylic glass there are some extra steps that should be followed for high quality results.
1. Remove the protective foil from the top side of the acrylic glass, if you leave it on it can melt onto the acrylic and the engraved areas will look dirty and not homogenous.
2. Carefully add masking tape to the top side of the acrylic glass (Area around and above the part that gets engraved). This is done to prevent the buildup from the acrylic fumes that will otherwise deposit onto the material and have to be polished away afterwards. The glue residue from the masking tape is a lot easier to remove than the acrylic buildup
Guide to focus the Laser
Recommendation for Material Positioning
Quick start tutorial for the new Epilog Fusion laser cutter
Guide to the Arduino Compressor Controller
Laser Cutter Maintenance
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Clean the Lens: weekly or twice a week to remove smoke residue and ensure optimal beam quality.
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Clean the Mirrors: every few months to maintain reflectivity and cutting performance.
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Clean the Scale: monthly inspection and cleaning of the ruler/scale to ensure accurate positioning.
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Check the Focus: monthly calibration of the focal height for precise cutting and engraving.
Maintanance Files
Fokustest
To check the laser focus, you can use this test file. Manually set the material thickness on the laser cutter itself and load the PDF.
Import the "LaserTest" preset in the Epilog Dashboard and click "Print."
You will now see several engraved lines. If the laser is correctly focused, you should see two very thin, separate lines instead of one thick one.
The numbers represent the deviation from the set focus height. You can adjust your focus accordingly.
Test for Cutting parameters
To determine the laser cutting parameters for a given material you can use this test file. Manually set the material thickness on the laser cutter itself and load the PDF.
Import the "CuttinTest" preset in the Epilog Dashboard and click "Print."
Set the PDF origin to x=5mm and y=5mm
Then Isolate each corner and cut them one after the other
The white Area determines which lines should be cut/engraved.
Then try to align the cut out piece on the cuttingbed.
The right corner of the right pieces should be aligned to x=1010mm
And the lower left corner on the lower two pieces should be aligned to y=710mm