Lesson Category: Mini / Helix

Keypad

The keypad on your laser system is the control panel for your machine. The easy-to-use control panel allows you to access your job, start and stop the laser, focus for your project, and much more. On the LCD panel you will see any current jobs at the machine. You can scroll through these jobs to the one you want to run.

Vector Cutting Grid

Here is the included vector-cutting grid for the Mini and Helix machines. This robust table with metal honeycomb grid allows you to cut through all kinds of materials with minimal backside burning.

Engraving Table

The cutting table can easily be removed and the engraving plate can be quickly installed for your engraving jobs. When you’re not vector cutting, the engraving task plate provides a level flat surface for optimal engraving quality across the entire work area of your laser system. The work area includes to two linear guide rulers that help with placement of your objects at the top left corner of the engraving table, and can also be used to hold down thin materials for cutting or engraving.

X-Axis Assembly

This is the I-Beam, or X-Axis Gantry. It will initially be parked in the upper location of your work area, so you have better access to the laser bed to place items on the table.

Lens Assembly

The laser’s lens assembly is carried on the I-Beam which moves left and right in a sweeping motion in the x-axis direction, and moves the lens carriage in the y-axis direction as well.

On the lens assembly you will find the industrial-grade mirrors, lens, auto-focus, and air assist tube. The mirrors and lens are rated to over 500 watts and are integral part of Epilog’s optics system. It consists of a mirror that reflects the laser beam down through a focal length lens. Keeping your laser optics clean will help them perform their best, and it starts with fully accessible front-mounted mirrors that can be easily removed for cleaning.

Air Assist

The Air Assist Tube directs a constant stream of compressed air along the cutting surface, reducing the possibility of flaming, scorching or charring when cutting through materials. The Air Assist Tube must be used in conjunction with a standard compressed air supply, or the optional stand-alone compressor offered by Epilog.

Automatic Focus Gauge

The spring-based automatic focus gauge can be used to bring your table and material to the correct focal height automatically with the click of a button in the Epilog Mini / Helix Driver.

Air Intake

Looking at the top of the system, just behind the hinges for the top access door, you’ll see six air intake holes for the laser’s heat-sync fans. The laser tube for your system is located below these fans, which make up the Super-Silent Fan System which operate a low 59 to 62 decibel range.

Exhaust

At the back of the laser system you will find the exhaust plenum. The top 4 slots within the work area cabinet are where the engraving area will be exhausted of all of the smoke, dust and debris resulting from your engraving and cutting. The bottom two holes in the tray below the cutting and engraving plates operate as a vacuum suction table, pulling the air through the bottom of the cutting table away from the surface of your engraving material.

Front Access Door

On the front of the Mini and Helix machines you’ll find the front access drop-down door. This safety-interlocked door allows you to easily place a tray of jigged parts and larger items on the table through the front of the system.

Power

On the left side of the system in the bottom left corner you’ll find the Main Power switch, two AC breakers and where your power cord is attached to the system.

System Rear

Moving on to the back of the laser system you will find a 4” exhaust plenum to which you’ll attach your exhaust fan or filtration system. Just to the right of the Exhaust Plenum is the anodized tag where you’ll find your serial number, which you will need if you find it necessary to contact technical support.

Also, located on the back of the machine are the Auxiliary port used for system diagnosis, the Ethernet and USB ports used to connect your laser system to a computer, and the Air Assist Tube plugin for your compressor pump.

Interior System Components

As we remove the right side panel of the system, we can see the inner workings of the machine. Here you will find the X-Axis Motor and Belt, Y-Axis Rail Assembly, Y-Axis Motor, Y-Axis Belt, Control Board, and the Z-Axis Table Motor.

Now we’ll move the back of the system with the back panel removed. The first thing you’ll notice near the top is the heart and soul of your laser machine, the CO2 laser tube. A Collimator for the system’s Radiance optics, is installed on the right of the tube for the Mini 24 and Helix system. The laser beam passes through this collimator to create a more even beam across the laser table, then is reflected off the mirror at the top of the enclosure and back to a mirror at the rear of the system before moving on to the laser beam assembly.

A single power supply is located to the right of the exhaust plenum for 30 and 40 watt laser tubes, and an additional power supply is installed to the left of the exhaust plenum for 50, 60, or 75 watt laser tubes.

This was a quick look at the inner workings of your Mini and Helix laser systems. Now it’s time to start engraving!

Exhaust Option 1: Exhaust Motor Blower

What we have here is a standard 2 Horsepower exhaust motor blower. It is very simple to set up.

Hook up the exhaust hose to the machine, use a quick clamp to secure the hose to the machine.

Then, connect the other end of the hose to the intake port on your dust collecting blower.

Next, connect another exhaust hose to the outtake port of the blower and the other end to a wall vent or window.

This will be noisier than the other options, but also the most cost-effective option.

Exhaust Option 2: Filtration System

Another option is to hook up your Mini or Helix laser to an internal filtration system.

These systems also have a simple set up, requiring only one exhaust hose to be connected from the machine to the filtration unit. Required exhaust flow rates for filtration systems are lower than the 350 CFM we require for external exhaust, because the filtration system will be placed directly adjacent to the laser system and does not exhibit the air-flow losses typically found with direct exhaust fans. Please contact your Epilog distributor to match an exhaust system to the Epilog Laser machine you are using.

These systems are ideal if you cannot run an exhaust line to the roof, or are looking to travel with the laser. The units typically use a HEPA/Carbon Charcoal filter to remove odor and smoke. There are several manufacturers of these types of filters that your distributor can help you choose between.

Exhaust Option 3: Outdoor Exhaust Unit

What we have here is an ideal setup for the exhaust of a laser system in an office environment. We have our exhaust pipe mounted against the wall connected to the motor blower on the outside of the building to ventilate outdoors.

You want to keep the flexible portion of the tubing as short as possible to reduce air turbulence and to increase the air flow. Above the flexible tubing, we connect to a galvanized steel straight pipe. Your local HVAC professional can help you with setting this up.

We suggest putting the exhaust blower outside with an electrical switch near the machine to turn on and off the blower. This provides you with the quietest, most efficient operation.

Things to Keep in Mind

The Mini and Helix systems require 350-400 CFM for external exhuast. Vinyl, plastic or other soft ducting is potentially flammable and should not be used unless provided by the filtration system manufacturer and made from fire-proof materials. It’s always good to start by consulting with your local HVAC professional to see what is ideal for your specific situation.

How do you know which DPI setting is right for your project?

Print quality is often determined by the resolution of an image, and is one of the main variables to consider when laser engraving. Resolution is expressed in DPI or dots per inch and is determined by the number of lines or dots that are engraved for every inch of movement. Each horizontal line of dots the laser produces is referred to as a raster line. A higher resolution selected in the print driver will make the dots engrave closer together, and will produce a higher quality result.

Although resolution does play a big part in engraving quality, keep in mind that engraving resolution is only one factor in determining image quality. The focus, brightness, and contrast elements of an image can have greater influence on the look of the final engraving than resolution alone. If low-quality artwork is used, even the highest resolution setting in the print driver will not improve the engraving. Also, keep in mind that image quality is subjective. Engraving a project at 300 DPI may be just fine for some images and customers, while 600 DPI is required as the absolute minimum for others.

These 3 examples exhibit qualities that will not produce the best engraving results.

The first example is a photograph taken at an event where the overall light is too bright and includes a very hazy look.

The second example is a low resolution logo provided as a 72 DPI image, rather than as vector artwork or in a vector format. 72 DPI is too low a resolution for a logo engraving project. It’s best to receive logo artwork as a vector image when possible.

And the third example is of a photograph that is very dark and includes very little contrast. These three photos illustrate some of the image issues that cannot be fixed with resolution settings alone at the laser.

Now we’ll discuss a bit more about how DPI works at the laser. This diagram shows the concept of raster lines and dots-per-inch (DPI), and the difference in dot density between 75, 300, and 600 DPI. Each dot represent a laser pulse, and the arrows represent the change in direction of the optics assembly for each raster line. Note how sparse the dots are at 75 DPI, and how the dots are very close and overlapping at 600 DPI.

How Resolution Affects a Job’s Completion Time

Generally, the time it takes to complete an engraving job is significantly affected by resolution. The higher the resolution, the more time it will take to complete an engraving job. While a higher resolution setting does increase the time it takes to complete an engraving, it allows you to achieve greater depth in materials like wood and rubber without having to reduce the speed of the laser. High resolution is also ideal for highly detailed wood engraving, such as the Epilog Aztec Calendar, and rubber stamps, which typically include small typefaces, intricate details, and more depth in the recessed areas.

There will be times when your customer requests a large number of pieces, and it will be important to minimize the time spent completing the job, without sacrificing quality. Optimizing a projects DPI by selecting a lower resolution will help reduce engraving time and increase profits.

These tiger photo engravings on anodized aluminum show the quality difference at 300, 400, and 600 DPI. Out of these examples, you can see the 600 DPI engraving produced a high-quality engraving and took 2 min and 44 secs to complete. But, the 400 DPI result is nearly just as good, and only took 1:49 seconds to complete.

As an example, if a customer ordered 100 of these tiger cards, then completing the 100 cards at 600 DPI would take around 4 hrs and 35 minutes to be completed, but engraving the project at 400 DPI would allow you to complete the project in just over 3 hours.

Combining DPI and Dithering Pattern for More Time Savings

There are other techniques to save you time without sacrificing engraving quality. Your Epilog Laser machine includes dithering pattern options, which eliminate the perceivable dot pattern you see when engraving at lower resolutions with the Standard dithering option.

In this example, note the dot pattern in the engraving on the left and the absence of the perceivable dot pattern in the example on the right. Each of these engravings were produced using 300 DPI, and the time to complete them was the same, but the one on the left was engraved using the Standard dithering pattern, while the engraving of the right was completed with the Stucki Dithering pattern.

Utilizing Epilog’s Stucki Dithering setting and engraving at 300 DPI produces a high-quality result similar to the 600 DPI, and also provides a large time saving advantage.

Applying this combination of settings to the previous project example of engraving 100 tiger cards, the engraving project would take only 2 hours and 17 minutes to complete, further increasing the time savings and profitability of this project.

As a final example and to further illustrate how DPI effects engraving, we’ve used a 50-watt Helix to engrave a grayscale clip art image, with settings of 45 percent speed and 100 percent power. The only thing that changed between each engraving is the resolution.

When it comes to settings and the final results of a project it can come down to a matter of personal preference as to which resolution looks better, but these photos show the dramatic difference resolution can make, especially when engraving grayscale images.

Matching Resolution Settings to Your Material

We recommend consulting your manual or the included material settings installed with your machine driver and the Epilog Job Manager.

75-200 DPI

Resolution settings in this range are typically used for non-production purposes where you want to experiment with image engraving location, or if you want to quickly produce a rough draft engraving. A low resolution can also be useful when engraving products that don’t require much material to be removed during engraving, such as fabric.

300 DPI

300 DPI is a versatile sweet spot for laser engraving. This setting is useful when engraving materials such as wood, glass, marble, plastic and other items that don’t benefit from the engraved dots being close together.

400 DPI

This resolution value is ideal for many applications. It combines very good image quality with fast engraving times. Many users like 400 DPI for all of their work.

600 DPI

600 DPI provides fine detail, depth, or is useful when high-end results are required.

1200 DPI

1200 DPI resolution is used for projects that require the best engraving quality possible, when engraving extremely small fonts, or when depth of engraving is the goal.

Things to Remember

• When it comes to settings and the look of the final result, personal preference is something to consider, but also try to minimize the time it takes to complete a project when possible.
• When experimenting with new products and materials, make sure to have extras on hand for dialing in the best settings and results.
• Be sure to consult your manual as a starting point for materials settings, and also utilize the epiloglaser.com website as a resource for additional product ideas and materials settings. We provide Sample Club articles monthly, and you can sign up to receive them at www.epiloglaser.com/resources/enews-signup.htm.