Unit 30 D1
Printing Techniques and Developing
Laser & Vinyl Cutters: Laser cutting is a technology that uses lasers to cut materials and is typically used for industrial manufacturing, but is also recently being used by schools and small businesses. Laser cutting works by directing the output of a high laser usually through optics.
Laser cutting machines can be customised for a person's specific industrial or educational applications and they can also be easily adjusted for a wide range of materials.
They can also cut a wide rang of materials to a high degree of accuracy, even difficult or complex detail can be produced effectively.
Because laser cutting is faster than traditional, more primitive techniques, you can achieve greater output and increased productivity.
Laser cutting is a contact-free process - materials do not need to be clamped down or adjusted and the machines never expose the operator to moving parts.
Whether you are new to laser cutting or an expert, laser cutting machines are also relatively easy to operate.
Compared to previous years, shops would've had to paint their windows and vans etc, but now laser cutting is as easy as sticking the logos onto surfaces.
A vinyl cutter is a form of computer controlled machine. Small vinyl cutters resemble regular computer printers but others tend to be much larger. The computer controls the movement of a sharp blade which is used to cut out shapes and letters from sheets of thin self-adhesive plastic (or vinyl). A symbol/label can be produced using a vinyl cutter such as a 'sticker machine'. These machines are controlled by a computer operate similarly to a printer. Essentially they cut out shapes in adhesive vinyl which can then be stuck onto almost any surface.
The cutter uses a small knife to accurately cut the outline of a picture into a sheet or piece of vinyl. The knife then moves from side to side and turns, while the vinyl is moved beneath it. The result from this process is an image cut into the material. It is then 'weeded' where the excess parts of the picture are removed.
Vehicle wrapping is a special process in which your vehicle is literally ''wrapped'' in printed graphics so that very little of its original paint colour is visible. The graphics are printed onto an adhesive vinyl film which sticks to the surface of your vehicle.
Accepted file types for laser & vinyl cutting: DXF compatible with autoCAD version 2011 or earlier, DWG compatible with AutoCAD version 2011 or earlier, CDR (CorelDRAW), AI (Adobe Illustrator), EPS (Adobe Illustrator), SVG, PDF.
3D Printing: 3D printing starts with making a virtual design of the object you want to create. This virtual design is made in CAD file using a 3D modelling program or with the use of a 3D scanner. The scanner makes a 3D digital copy of an object and puts it into a 3D modelling program.
To prepare the digital file created in a 3D modelling program for printing, the software slices the final model into hundreds or thousands of horizontal layers. When this prepared file is uploaded in the 3D printer, it creates the object layer by layer. The 3D printer reads every slide and proceeds to create the object by blending each layer together with no sign of the layering visible, resulting in one three dimensional object.
Regardless of the 3D modelling software used, the 3D model needs to be converted to either an STL or an OBJ format, to allow the printing software to read it.
Laser Printers for Leaflets and Flyers: They work by making a laser beam scan back and forth across a drum inside the printer, building up a pattern of static electricity. This then attracts onto the page a kind of powdered ink called toner. Finally, as in a photocopier, a fuser unit bonds the toner to the paper.
Duplex printing is a feature of computer and multifunction printers that allows the automatic printing of a sheet of paper on both sides. Print devices without this capability can only print on a single side of paper, sometimes called single-sided printing or simplex printing.
Collate printing is when your printer can sort multiple copy jobs. For example, if you print two copies of a three-page document and you choose not to collate them, the pages then print in the order of 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 3. You can then staple the sheets together,
Accepted file types for laser cutting: DXF compatible with autoCAD version 2011 or earlier, DWG compatible with AutoCAD version 2011 or earlier, CDR (CorelDRAW), AI (Adobe Illustrator), EPS (Adobe Illustrator), SVG, PDF.
Inkjet Printing: Instead of metal needles, they use hundreds of tiny guns to fire dots of ink at the printer instead. The characters they print are still made up of dots, but they are so small that they are not visible to the naked eye. Different types of inkjet printers fire in the ink in various.
Desktop inkjet printers are usually used in the office or at home.
