Laser cutting — custom parts, quoted and delivered same day.^*

Laser cutting is a production technique that uses a beam of light to cut a wide range of materials and thicknesses. A laser cutter can vary in size greatly from small desktop LED-based lasers with a power of a few watts to extremely large industrial laser cutter machines that use powers in excess of 1KW. Laser cutters are very similar to 3-axis CNC machines as both use an XY gantry that can move a tool around a workpiece, but while a CNC typically has a third axis for moving a tool up and down, a laser cutter will either have a laser module or a mirror that receives light from a stationary laser source.

Laser cutters have some big advantages when compared to other manufacturing techniques. Firstly, laser cutters can provide precision cuts thanks to the precise nature of laser beams and their ability to only remove material directly under the beam. Secondly, laser cutters can cut thin materials more easily and faster than standard CNC machines. This is due to the fact that a laser cutter bed uses a gridded design that does not need to hold the workpiece down when being cut. A CNC, however, is required to make multiple passes when cutting as well as being required to hold the workpiece down while also needing to leave bridges between the sheet material and the part being cut. Another advantage of laser cutting is that it can be used to cut far more materials than typical CNC machines. Sure, CNCs can be used to cut thick metal, wood, and plastic, but lasers can cut a much wider range of materials. Of course, one of the biggest advantages by far of laser cutters is that they are one of the cheapest methods of production. Unless a part is being produced in the millions, laser cutting will generally beat CNC, plastic injection moulding, and 3D printed parts.

Laser cutters can cut a wide variety of materials; the only criteria are that the material being cut can absorb the light from the laser beam and will vaporise on exposure and that it doesn’t let off corrosive gases that would harm the laser. In the case of Ponoko, most woods, plastics, and metal including steel can be cut using laser cutters. Of all materials that can be laser cut, plastic has a particularly nice edge finish as it partly melts. This leaves laser cut plastic parts with a smoother edge than a blade or bit that makes any shape look sharp and professional.

Ponoko can read 2D vector design files from a wide variety of softwares. The best file types to export for making are DXF, SVG, Ai or EPS files. As laser cutters can also engrave and produce cut-outs inside objects, Ponoko can recognize different colors in your file to assign to different cutting techniques. For example if you wanted to cut and engrave a part, you could use blue lines to represent a complete cut through the material and red lines to represent an engraving pattern. Engraving can be particularly useful when adding text and graphics to a shape for labelling purposes. Once you have your design file ready, you can upload the file with ease and the Ponoko service will guide you through your design asking you about the scale, dimensions, and what material you want to use.

Laser cutting is great for creating complex shapes that are made from sheet materials that require precision. However, laser cutting is not great for very thick materials over 12mm as the laser beam converges at the focal point meaning that it loses its ability to cut. Furthermore, the laser cutting bed uses a grid meaning that it is not ideal for cutting very small parts as when these are cut they can fall through the bed and be lost.

The theoretical answer, yes. The real answer, nope. While an infinitely powerful beam could cut through anything, real lasers are limited in strength through their power rating. As such, some materials are just too difficult to cut through (such as glass). In addition to this, some materials such as PVC offput corrosive gases that would be bad for machines and should be avoided.

Ponoko uses a wide range of different laser cutters depending on the material they are cutting. However, for all processes and materials, Ponoko offers at the very least a dimensional accuracy of ±0.13mm, a laser kerf of 0mm - 0.2mm, complex features down to 1mm x 1mm, and part sizes down to 6mm x 6mm.

Ponoko offers a wide range of materials all with varying thicknesses. If combining all materials together, the range of thickness offered by Ponoko is between 0.1mm to 19.1mm. The largest parts can have dimensions of 790mm x 384mm, and customers can fit multiple designs into a single piece of material to save money.

Ponoko services allow you to use a wide variety of design softwares. So long as your software package can produce vector DXF, Ai, EPS, or SVG files, then you are good to go. If you’d like both cutting and engraving, then you’ll also want to ensure your software can export two different line colors to use for assigning laser functions when ordering. If you want suggestions, then consider CAD programs such as Alibre, Autodesk, and Solidworks or 2D graphic programs such as Adobe Illustrator and Inkscape.

So long as your design does not have complex features under 1mm x 1mm and the size of your design is greater than 6mm x 6mm then you can have incredibly complex features. However, customers should be aware that very long and thin features may sag if the chosen material cannot support the weight of the protruding feature.

Yes, a single laser cutter can do both engraving and cutting. This is achieved by either controlling the power of the laser (less power when engraving and more when cutting) or using a laser cutter with reduced power and using multiple passes for cutting.

Ponoko breaks down the laser cutting process into several streamlined steps to provide customers with rapid manufacturing and shipping. The first step involves the use of an online quotation system that provides Ponoko with a standard file format created from user submissions. The formatted production files are then checked by the customer team. Once files are approved for making, orders are handed over to the production team where in house material stock is ready to go for making and shipping as fast as same day. Shipping providers are pre scheduled to pick up packages daily Mon-Fri.

Trying to scale a project from concept to prototyping can be extremely challenging, and production methods such as 3D printing can only do so much. When a design needs to look similar to the finished product, one has to turn to a professional production method such as CNC or plastic injection moulding. However, laser cutting can provide this professionalism without the need to invest large amounts of money, and laser cutting can be used to produce thousands of parts at little cost compared to other production techniques.

When it comes to laser cutting, Ponoko is a world leader in laser cutting services for both engineers and makers. Our materials are of the highest quality and sourced from respectable manufacturers with trustworthy supply chains. The wide range of different engineered materials that we offer can be used in almost any project conceivable, and the diverse range of existing clientele demonstrates our ability to provide. Not only are we professionals when it comes to laser cutting, but we also believe that trust is the foundation of any respectable business. As such, we take great care in protecting intellectual property from customers and ensure that all designs sent are handled with the utmost care.