Hi, I’m not a member yet, but I’m thinking about it. I recently designed some laser engraved leather keychains for a coffee shop for a promo that they do (pic included). They just told me that they want 1000 of them (and more later). They are 1.3” diameter circles so, 1000 would be about 12 square feet of laser engraving. I would love to use your big laser cutter to do this job, but I also want to respect the community and not use it too much. I know about the $1 / 5min charge.
So I guess I have two questions.
How fast is the laser cutter, and could it finish a job like this in a decent amount of time? (If not, I could break it up into smaller time chunks to be respectful to other people who also need the laser)
Is this the sort of thing that other people do too, or would I be out of line doing a big job like this?
Please don’t do production runs during prime time or when anyone is waiting on the laser. We are setup more as a hobbiest shop than a production facility.
If the image is a vector image is will go fairly fast, if it is a raster image it will take a very long time. I recommend you do a test run with only 10 or so keychains to see what kind of times you can expect.
To use any of our lasers requires membership and completion of a Laser Basics course.
Kudos to you for asking ahead about the etiquette.
Yes, some of our members sell their works. But at no time should a production run unduly hog a machine and back up the queue. There is some controversy re: whether members should be able to use our affordable non-profit membership + laser time fee in order to lower their manufacturing costs for their for-profit business, bypassing local manufacturing. That debate is beyond my paygrade. I do, however, encourage members to speak face-to-face with one another to promote good etiquette in the absence of an official ruling re: production.
Tldr is yes you can do it, but try to keep the longer cuts to off peak hours, or do what you were saying and cut it into smaller batches (might also help keep you from losing a ton of them to a freak accident)
While I don’t believe there are rules against it, it would be nice to remain a member after the large run, I’m sure you’ll find the space more than worth it and inspiring. It would seem a little dirty to join for one month and do a large production run then stop being a member.
