American Art Space
Epilog Laser Mini
Essential Rules
• Never touch the prism or the lens on the printer head
• Never run the machine unattended
• Never place any highly flammable materials in the machine without first
researching the laser settings - the laser should vaporize materials, not burn
them.
• Be prepared and understand how to use the fire extinguisher
• Never run the machine with the Top door open
• Never run the machine without the exhaust fan running
• Never use any surface whose texture or height changes by more than 1mm
across the job area
• When vector cutting, always use the honeycomb table
• If you are unsure how to do something, use the manual or ask someone
• If the laser fills up with excess smoke resulting in no visibility in the machine,
stop the laser and check your settings
Starting the LASER
1. Turn on the exhaust fan using the switch at the wall outlet
2. Turn on the laser using the switch on the lower left side of the laser machine
Starting the COMPUTER
1. Power on (button on lower left side of monitor)
2. Hold down the Option key as the computer boots to choose the Operating
System
3. Three hard drives will appear, choose Windows
4. Once windows is started, open Inkscape
5. Create or import your design but remember:
5.1. vectors or paths are used for cutting
5.2. raster or bitmap images are for engraving
5.3. you can engrave with vectors, but you can never cut with raster
5.4. in Inkscape adjust your art board size, and hide everything that you do
not want to cut or engraved.
6. You now need to choose to Cut or Etch
6.1. To Etch
6.1.1. Goto “File -> Print”
6.1.2. Choose the Epilog Laser as your printer (if it is not available see
the connection trouble shooting section below)
6.1.3. Select “Preferences” to start the Epilog Laser menu (Dark and Light
Blue menu should pop up)
6.1.4. Press “Advanced Options” on the top of the Epilog menu
6.1.5. You will see a list of common materials, with 1-4 settings for each
material.
6.1.6. Choose your material from the list and decide if you want 400 or
600 dpi (600 is more detailed but slower)
6.1.7. Press “Load” to load the material settings
6.1.8. Press “OK” at the bottom of the Menu
6.1.9. The Epilog Menu should disappear and you are now back to the
original print menu, Press “Print” to send the job to the Epilog Laser
6.1.10. The Epilog Laser “Data” light should come on briefly and the
display on the laser should show a new job has been received. (If
the job does not show up, see the printer connection help section
below and then start over from the start of step 6.)
6.2. To Cut:
6.2.1. Select the vector/s you wish to cut with
6.2.2. In the Inkscape Menu select “Object -> Fill and Stroke”
6.2.3. Set Fill to “none” and the stroke to pure opaque black with a stroke
width of .001 inches (see the FabLab guide for detailed instruction)
6.2.4. Goto “File - > Save As” and save the file as a pdf with default
settings
6.2.5. Open the file with Adobe Reader
6.2.6. Press “Print”
6.2.7. Choose the Epilog Laser as your printer (if it is not available see
the connection trouble shooting section below)
6.2.8. Select “Properties” to start the Epilog Laser menu (Dark and Light
Blue menu should pop up)
6.2.9. Press “Advanced Options” on the top of the Epilog menu
6.2.10. You will see a list of common materials, with 1-4 settings for each
material.
6.2.11. Choose your material from the list, using the option that says cut,
noting that for some materials you will also need to choose what
thickness your material is
6.2.12. Press “Load” to load the material settings
6.2.13. Press “OK” at the bottom of the Menu
6.2.14. The Epilog Menu should disappear and you are now back to the
original print menu, Press “Print” to send the job to the Epilog Laser
6.2.15. The Epilog Laser “Data” light should come on briefly and the
display on the laser should show a new job has been received. (If
the job does not show up, see the printer connection help section
below and then start over from the start of step 6.)
6.2.16. Make sure to load/use the Honeycomb Table
6.2.17.
7. Focus your the laser for your material (See below)
8. It is recommended that if placement is important, you test on cardboard first.
9. Check that the fan is on and the fire extinguisher is nearby
10. Press the green Go button to start the job - if there are any problems or to
stop the job at any time, press the red Stop button
11. When the laser is finished and the head returns to its start position, open the
door and remove your material.
Tips
• You can turn on the red laser pointer using the Pointer button on the machine
• Use the rulers to hold any materials that might move during the process
• You can repeat any jobs already sent to the machine by selecting them with the
up and down buttons and then pressing Go
• To switch table surfaces (steel vs honeycomb), lower the laser platform at least
15cm while in focus mode, flip the 3 rulers up, and carefully remove the table by
lifting the edge toward the front first and keeping the table far away from the
laser head. Insert the desired table putting the edge that is closest to the laser
head down first and then placing the table into the provided space. Flip the
rulers back down to hold it in place
Focusing the Laser
I.
Before you start etching or cutting, you MUST set the
Focus on the Laser machine.
A. use the Epilog Manual Focus Guide
1. open the door to the Epilog Laser
2. attach the Manual Focus Guide to the laser
head, matching the two holes on the guide to
the two pegs on the head. Magnets will hold
it in place.
3. select “Focus” on the Epilog Laser keypad
4. use the Down arrow on the Epilog Laser
keypad to lower the table to easily fit your
material under the Manual Focus Guide
5. use the Up and Down arrows on the Epilog Laser keypad to adjust the
height
a) you want the bottom of the Manual Focus Guide to just barely touch
your material, the guide should not be pushed up by your material
b) exit the Focus menu by pressing the “Jobs”
Troubleshooting the Connection
It is likely that the Epilog Laser will not connect properly after the computer or the
Laser have been restarted. The following describes how to resolve the issue
1. Move the mouse to the upper right corner of the screen to open the side bar
and press the Search icon
2. Select Settings below the search bar and search for Devices
3. Select “Devices and Printers”
4. Back on the Desktop you should see a window listing all the devices connected
to the computer
5. In the list of Printers there will be one called Fake Epilog and one called Epilog
Engraver - the Fake Epilog is a placeholder for the Drivers, you cannot use it
6. The Epilog Engraver will be either Fully Opaque, or semi transparent
7. If it is fully Opaque and there are no warning icons on it, then you should be
ready to send jobs to it
8. If it is not fully opaque or there is an exclamation point in front of it, you need to
try reconnecting the laser again
1. Pull the USB cable out of the computer, wait 5 seconds, plug it back in
2. Wait 5 seconds, if it is still not opaque, repeat.
3. This process may take several tries (even up to 10) but should eventually
result in a connection
9. Ignore the other Epilog USB device that might show up on the Devices and
Printers window, it has little bearing on getting the laser to connect
10. To fully test the connection, send it a job from Adobe reader or Inkscape and
see if it is received