Friday, June 28, 2013

Laser-Cut Lead Bender

Skip this step if you are happy with the two lead spacings provided (0.4” and 0.5”), and don't want to personalize the bender with your name or logo.  (If you are using a print driver other than Epilog, you may need to modify the artwork in order to differentiate raster vs. vector.)

Load the SVG file in Inkscape (or the PDF in another program like Corel Draw) and add your own logo, name, or enhancements.  The notches and spaces work well for 1/4W and similar-sized axial components.

Note that unless you get fancy with advanced print driver settings like Color Mapping, any text or logo you add will be engraved fairly deeply, since we're using the raster setting to cut a pocket for the component to sit in.  If you want to cut a ton of these out, you can optimize things so any logos are engraved quickly at a high speed setting, and the pockets are cut at the slower speed (hence, deeper).

If you add or modify any paths that should be cut, remember that the Epilog print driver requires vector cuts be indicated by thin lines (e.g., 0.002”).


View the original article here

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