I have an Epilog Zing-24, and have recently started using it to cut acrylic parts for prototyping. Usually, I take a SolidWorks drawing, create a drawing, export it as a DXF file, pull it into Corel Draw, and then I have to go into the drawing, and draw offsets to each line I want to cut, to make up for the beam width, or the final parts come out either too small or too large. Re-drawing everything using offsets, is painful and time consuming. I cannot just go into solidworks and make everything bigger or smaller, because later on, if I want to cut the same part on CNC mill, I will have trouble there.

Does anyone have any easy solution to this problem?

Normally, on any other CNC machine, I would pull the part into a CAM package, specify the toolpath, and the size of the tool is automatically handled by the CAM package. Perhaps there is a way to control the Zing with some g-code? Then I could use a CAM package to generate the laser path, and the beam width could be accounted for.

All suggestions appreciated.

Thanks,

-Ted