Three Crucial Guidelines on Designing Custom Products for Laser Cutting

Laser cutting has numerous advantages over other cutting methods in the fabrication industry. This technique can handle diverse materials ranging from metal and plastics to wood and glass. Also, it produces high-quality edges because the process uses a focused beam. Additionally, laser cutting shows strong repeatability, minimal material wastage, and high precision. However, you should remember that procedure is not magical. The benefits obtained will depend on the design provided for translation into a suitable product. Here are some crucial guidelines for creating an appropriate custom design for laser cutting. 

Prepare a Vector Drawing

When planning for laser cutting project, you should prepare the correct drawing to match the cutter to be used. Often, businesses provide simple drawings or other illustrations to the fabricator for the creation of their products. Unfortunately, a basic diagram does not offer enough information for machines to cut correctly. Therefore, you must prepare a vector drawing for your project. This type of diagram can be made with considerable ease using computer-aided design applications. If you are not familiar with CAD, you should speak to a dedicated design of your professional laser cutting company. 

Eliminate Complex Elements

Laser cutters are flexible as manufacturing tools, and they can handle numerous cutting processes of an intricate nature. However, if your custom design is overly complex, you will not obtain the best results. In simple terms, complicated designs are difficult to handle, so the final result will not be as perfect as desired. Also, the work required to translate a complex drawing into a physical product is high. Therefore, your fabrication project will become more expensive. The common design issues that make a product complicated include wide engraved surfaces, narrow product parts and superfluous details. You should review your design severally and seek expert opinions. This process should allow you to identify flaws and simplify the design. 

Plan for Smooth Assembly

Finally, if you are planning on building a huge or unavoidably complex product, you should make sure that you can assemble the parts with ease. Often, it is necessary to develop a product in separate elements and then combine them afterward. This process can simplify the product design and even reduce your expenses. Unfortunately, if the pieces do not assemble smoothly into one another, you might experience project delays and losses. Therefore, when creating your design, you must ensure that you have accounted for the kerf. This consideration will ensure that the elements lock smoothly into each other. 

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