Frequently Asked Questions
1. What materials can you laser cut?
Lasercut Solutions currently stocks and is available to cut the following materials:
-Acrylic – Up to 25mm thick (other thickness can be arranged please call for information).
-Aluminium – Up to 3mm thick.
-Echopanel – Up to 24mm thick.
-Galvabond – Up to 3mm thick.
-MDF – Up to 32mm thick.
-Mild Steel – Up to 12mm thick.
-Stainless Steel – Up to 5mm thick.
-Timber – Up to 32mm thick.
-Zinc Coated Steels – Up to 2mm thick.
Our laser cutting machines have the capacity to hold 3m x 1.5m sheets for steels and aluminium related products while timber and acrylic sheets 2.4m x 1.2m can be cut on our specialist signage equipment. Please note that any materials that are adversely affected by heat, those that give of toxic fumes when cut or materials that are overly reflective cannot be laser cut. These materials include glass, tiles, copper, bronze or PVC to name a few. Please contact us for more information about the materials we can process.
2. Do you work on minimum quantities?
Absolutely not! There are however associated fees for non-account customers that require one off or small runs of parts, read more on this in question 4.
3. Do you offer laser engraving services?
Yes we do! We have the capacity to engrave work over the entire 2.4m x 1.2m surface of our machine for your convenience. Materials that can be engraved include acrylic, Echopanel, timber, stainless steel and anodised aluminium. For more information about engraving services please give us a call on 08 8326 3700.
4. What fees are associated with laser cutting or engraving?
As Lasercut Solutions is a job shop we quote each job as it comes in with prices being valid for 30 days from date of quotation. As such we need appropriate files or artwork in order to be able to give an accurate cutting price prior to commencing work. There are however some fixed fees below which apply to non-account holders:
-Minimum Cutting Charge: $80.00 + Material (if supplied by Lasercut Solutions) + GST
-Programming Fees: $80.00 + GST per hour including one free test sample to confirm part accuracy.
Programming fees apply to customers who are unable to provide us with suitable vector artwork or files as described in question 5 below.
5. What is the difference between a vector file and a raster image?
When we take a photo or look at a picture on our screen the image is made up of a series of thousands of pixels (short for picture element) and is known as a raster image. Computers display these pictures by storing the unique colour information of each pixel inside the image file itself. Programs are then written to read these files and tell the monitor what colour each pixel needs to be in order to show the picture back to us. This however becomes problematic if we wish to scale the picture and make it very large because the only way we can now increase the size of the picture is to stretch the pixels, not only providing a blurry image but also losing accuracy.
Conversely vector files are created from a series of lines and arcs and are depicted as such by mathematical equations, which can be infinitely scaled up or down without any loss of precision. CNC laser cutting equipment and CNC mechanical cutters rely on the accuracy of vector files to reproduce your files into accurate precision cut components and shapes. These are the types of files we require for cutting and can be shown in the table below:
| Raster Files (Programming Fees) | Vector Files (NO Programming Fees) |
| *.jpeg | *.eps |
| *.png | *.dwg |
| *.gif | *.dxf |
| *.bmp | *.sbd (Signblazer) |
| *.tga | *.ai |
Customers supplying files from products such as Corel Draw and Illustrator please note although these software packages output DXF's they have a tendency to break them into a series of small line segments. This provides sub-standard cutting conditions and as such it is best to provide an EPS file, flattened onto a single layer and saved to a previous version (Illustrator 3 or 4) for compatibility with our software systems.