A Guest Post from one of our businesses located in Canada CNCKing.com.
In this video, CNCROi.com creates a custom 3/4 inch (18 mm) Pine Sign using an Austrian wide-format Trotec Speedy 400 flexx CNC laser.
CNCROi.com is a professional custom CNC shop with clients worldwide that can engrave, etch, mark, anneal and cut any material for any application in addition to custom design / build solutions.
Day one of our $250 voucher competition, and we already have some amazing pics in. You don’t have to be an engraving register registered business to enter, so get snapping, cracking and sharing for your chance to win a $250 Trotec Laser Australia gift voucher! View our competition page now to enter.
Focal Point Laser Engraving sent these awesome designed gumboots via Facebook:
Mobile Engraving Solutions sent in this liquor bottle. You can only see the engraving when it’s full. Cheers to that!
Evright.com (our Premium Sponsor!) sent in one of their recent medal tasks – made out of cardboard!!
The challenge is on… who will win?!
The Engravers Register and our Premium Sponsor Trotec Laser Australia, have combined to throw down the challenge to our engraving businesses. On offer for the winner is a $250 consumables voucher* from Trotec Laser Australia!
All you need to do is share a picture of your favourite engraving job with us and let us know what material it was created on. If you feel like sharing the story behind the creation or the customer, please feel free.
Head to our competition page for more information and to enter. Competition entries will be shown on our gallery page.
Good luck! Entries close 28 February 2013.
Our sponsors are leading suppliers to the industry, who are passionate about ensuring the success of businesses and the industry itself. Throughout the year, our sponsors will offer a range of special offers to help drive your productivity and profitability. They are passionate about making YOUR business happen, so make sure you support the businesses that support you.
$AUD150 or $AUD250 credit towards marketing, website and social media requirements for Engravers Register businesses *
The Titanium Cog (971 downloads)
Titanium Marketing can offer Engravers Register businesses a brand new website and domain name for a very small investment (less than $1,000). Imagine having [email protected] rather than [email protected]!
Contact them today for their range of small business packages which also includes ongoing support and management of websites and social media. Titanium Marketing happily works with clients around Australia and New Zealand, and overseas.
Trotec Laser voucher for 10% of the purchase price
Any Trotec Laser machine ordered by the end of February 2013 will receive a voucher for 10% of the purchase price to spend on upgrades , consumables or accessories. Please note: freight excluded and offer only available for customers of the Australian-New Zealand subsidiary.
Quote “Engravers Register” deal when enquiring with Trotec Laser.
Free pre-approval and document fees waived!
Ecolease is proud to offer free pre-approval and will waive document fees for new finance applications (for clients in Australia). This offer is only valid until the end of February 2013, so enquire now about updating your capital equipment or reviewing your current equipment finance and make 2013 more profitable and productive.
Contact (02) 9416 0629 or email [email protected] and quote ‘Engravers Register’.
Some more news from our Premium Sponsor Trotec Laser Australia. Their new Pintrest board has been receiving a lot of hits and interesting pins lately.
Laser cut models for universities, architects and model makers! Follow them on Pintrest to see their interesting range of projects and machines.
Source: troteclaser.com via Trotec on Pinterest
No, we are not talking about an Irish dance here! Jigs are a very important tool in our industry to ensure accurate engraving of a variety of products.
Jigs are used in a variery of production environments, including our Premium Sponsor’s Evright.com. They are essential when working with a tool such as a Trotec Laser that offers unrivalled precision where even being a few millimetres off will be noticeable to a human eye.
Evright.com is one of the leading on-site engraving businesses and has attended many large scale events. The recent Lifesaving Championships held just a couple of months in Adelaide ago is a great example, where custom made jigs were essential to a safe and efficient engraving process for Evright.com‘s success.
Visitors and competitors from around the world would want an assortment items like medals and souveniers engraved with their name, but Evright.com had no way of predicting the volume interest on any given day, much less hour, while servicing the event. As such, Evright.com made a custom jig with areas for specific products from dog tags to pens.
Generally, Evright.com‘s jigs are made-up of two layers, one with the “holes” with a backing. They use acrylic because it’s an easy material to work with. There is no smoke, it’s available in a variety of colors, relatively cheap and available in a wide variety of consistent thicknesses – you might be fine using 2mm acrylic for a dog tag but for some oddly shaped item, additional flexibility may be required. Evright.com also use and recommend Trotec Laser machines, as do us here at the Engravers Register, to ensure your jigs and products turn out the best quality.
Trotec Laser’s Rayjet machine was a minimum requirement for Evright.com in addition to their jigs at the recent Lifesaving Championships.
In business, we are continually managing finance and captial requirements, assets and equipments against our workflows and customer requirements. We constantly worry if our machines are suitable for what we need them to do, if they are aged and if we are paying to much back to the bank in the form of interest!
The Engravers Register understands the frustrations faced by businesses in the engraving industry, as does our supporting sponsor Ecolease. Ecolease is an independent finance broking firm focussed on providing businesses appropriate financial facilities to ensure businesses maintains a healthy degree of commercial flexibility. What does that mean? Ecolease will work with you to ensure your finance matches your business and cash flow requirements, maximising your profitability and outputs.
Ecolease also works closely with a range of leading suppliers, like Trotec Laser Australia, to match both your equipment and finance to your business. If you’re looking to upgrade your machine or increase your business’ capacity for 2013, then this is the perfect time to talk to Ecolease and Trotec Laser Australia.
The best thing is, Ecolease is a “small to medium business loving” financier looking to work with you to deliver results for your business.
The Engravers Register is pleased to welcome more registered businesses, and in particular, we would like to welcome some more international businesses!
Firstly, hello to Top Signs from Port Vila, Vanuatu! Top Signs have been servicing Vanuatu and the Pacific Islands since 2002, and have been growing their engraving, marking and cutting capacity in the past couple of years with a Trotec Laser (see below).
The Engravers Register hits the African continent for the first time, with Secbands Pty Ltd from South Africa. ARTES from Croatia have also joined us from Europe.
Last but not least! From Australia, we would like to welcome Georgies Fine Jewellery from Narooma, NSW and Wimmera Trophies & Gifts from Horsham, Vic.
A big hello to our new registered businesses – we look forward to working with you in 2013.
When our Premium Sponsor Titanium Marketing wanted to test some unique business cards, they didn’t go any further than another one of our Premium Sponsors, Trotec Laser!
The business cards are almost finished, however, the very first prototype looks very interesting! We are looking forward to seeing the final product – a great way to kickstart 2013.
Here is another great story from one of our supporting sponsors, CNCKing.com on what they consider when designing and building 3D objects using laser cutter machines, such as the ones from our Premium Sponsor Trotec Laser. The team at Engravers Register can’t wait to see their latest project – building a replica Eiffel Tower!
Laser Project Considerations by CNCKing.com
I’ve been designing for laser cutters for more than four years now and working on my 4th published book on the subject but regardless of the who/what/where of the design, the project considerations are always the same.
Budget
You have to decide almost from the beginning what kind of “laser cutting budget” you’ll allocate to the project at hand. Why so early in the process? Because material, cutting and assembly costs go up exponentially as the scale of the model and piece count go North. For instance, the Eiffel Tower design I’m working on now has only 35 pieces so far but will hover near 50 when finished and I gave myself an unlimited cutting budget for it, the original Eiffel Tower wasn’t cheap and nor will this one be standing at a meter high when finished. There isn’t any way to cut corners on a project like this, all the lattice work can’t be ignored so if you are going to go over budget, this is the model you want to do it on!
Piece Count
After you’ve given yourself a rough cutting budget, the next consideration is piece count. If the model is for a child, you don’t want something over 20-30 pieces but if it’s for a model master, more than 200 is fine. What I’ve found with time though is that sales and piece count are inversely proportional, meaning the more pieces your model has, the less sales it generates.
For instance, this Zulu Main Battle Tank below looks like fun to build but I wouldn’t expect a 10 year old kid to put it together – I’ve had 40 year old kids give it a go and they soon realized it was over their head! The problem isn’t the assembly process itself, it’s the tools and time required to glue, clamp and build the model up. It must be spread across a few days to allow the glue to dry and some minor refinements as the material is rarely the correct thickness. As mentioned previously, 6mm wood is rarely 6mm, usually it’s 6.4 or even more out of whack.
Material Choice
The material you intend to build your model with is critical! Why so important? Well, you want your model to be structurally sound. I would never give a kid a toy laser cut out of MDF, it simply won’t last and it’s a nasty material to work with nor would I try to build this plasma cut Dragon Fly using plywood. Some of these things sound like common sense but are too often overlooked! The general rule I use is that if a material is “strong” like plywood, it needs less supports than something “soft” like foam.
Take Away
It may seem like there is a lot to consider when building a CNC project, from material, machine type and budget to piece count, intended customer and their skill level. Don’t let this get in the way of the fun though! Even if you fail, the lessons you’ve learned can be applied to the next model!
Thanks to CNCKing.com for the above information… your experience in designing and building 3D objects is great for our registered businesses!