A clean drawing is the quickest route to an accurate quote and a part that is right first time. These are the checks worth running before you send a DXF.
The laser follows whatever your file contains. A stray line becomes a stray cut, and an open contour may not cut at all. Most hold-ups between "here is my drawing" and "parts are ready" come from a few common drawing problems. All of them are easy to fix before you send the file.
1. Draw at full scale, in millimetres
Draw the part 1:1 and set the file units to millimetres. A DXF drawn in inches or at a paper-space scale imports at the wrong size. A 100 mm bracket can come in as 2,540 mm or 3.9 mm. Before you export, measure one known dimension in your CAD program to confirm it.
2. Keep only the geometry to be cut
Delete title blocks, borders, dimensions, centre lines, hatching and notes. Put that information in the message or a separate PDF. Anything left in the DXF has to be picked out by hand during programming, and anything missed can end up being cut.
3. Close every contour, and remove duplicates
- Every outline and hole must be a closed loop. Join loose segments into polylines where your CAD tool allows it.
- Check for tiny gaps where lines nearly meet. Most CAD programs have a "join" or "overkill" type command that finds them.
- Delete overlapping or duplicate lines. A line drawn twice gets cut twice, which burns the edge and wastes machine time.
- Convert splines to arcs or polylines if your software offers it. Smooth curves then cut smoothly.
4. Respect minimum feature sizes
As a working rule, keep hole diameters, slot widths and the bridges between cut-outs no smaller than the sheet thickness. Smaller features may still be possible depending on material and design, so ask us first. Very fine detail in thick plate can distort from heat or lose definition. On jaali and decorative panels, generous bridges also keep the panel stiff.
5. Text and lettering
Explode text to geometry, because fonts may not be installed on our system. Letters with enclosed centres, such as O, A, B, D, P and R, will drop their centres when cut. Use a stencil-style font, or add small bridges that keep the centres attached.
6. Use layers for different jobs
Put cut lines on one layer. If the part will be bent, put bend lines on a separate, clearly named layer and tell us the inside radius or the bend details. Better still, send the 3D model or the bend drawing, and we will develop the flat blank in-house with our sheet metal software. That way the finished part comes out at the right size.
7. Check the part fits the sheet
Our fiber lasers have 3 m x 1.5 m beds. Larger parts have to be split into sections and joined. It is better to plan those joints in the design than to discover them at the quoting stage.
8. Don't offset for the kerf
Draw parts at their nominal size. Our CAM software compensates for the beam width (kerf) when it programs the cut, so offsetting in the drawing makes parts undersize.
What to send with the file
- The DXF (one part per file, or clearly separated parts with names)
- Material and thickness, e.g. MS 3 mm, SS 1.5 mm
- Quantity per part
- Any bending, welding or powder coating needed, with colour if known
- Required date
No DXF yet? Send a sketch, a PDF, a photo of a sample or a 3D model. Drafting, 3D modelling and flat-pattern development are part of our design support.
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