Lasering Acrylic

Today you will learn how to make an acrylic piece for your lightbox or whatever you want a plaque our a big plastic poster. This could be used to give as a gift or for yourself. You are going to use a laser engraver.

Items you will need:

laser engraver

acrylic piece

teacher or operator or self

proper safety equipment

computer hooked up to machine

file of acrylic template for engrver

Step 1: Getting Started

first, off you will need a computer because you need to create a template for the cutter or to create the designs for the acrylic. when doing this if you want to input images you need to use SVG file photos. this is important because without that then they will not be supported by lasers. when you put this file in the printer as said, it will work me promise and if it don't them you messed up somewhere

Step 2: File Types

when going to print this or cut it you want to make sure you have it in a file as an STJ file or the file that is recommended by the printer. if you use one that is not supported then it will not print. before this thought, you want to remove the box shown in the video file

Step 3: Printing

this is the fun part, now you're at the last step in the project this is where your final product comes in. some tips first, don't touch the laser, don't look in the laser. The laser will burn your eyes out of existence. when lasering be sure to have ventilation when the acrylic is burning it is releasing a chemical that is harmful to living things. WARNING: you will die if you inhale some much of this chemical so don't do it! when it is done allow it to vent for excess thirty seconds. then you can grab your piece of acrylic and run it under water to clean it from the plastic shavings. once this is done you have successfully made a piece of acrylic into a piece of... whatever you want to call it.