Hollis, New Hampshire, September 9, 2004--J P Sercel Associates (JPSA) has released a CAD conversion software tool with the ability to quickly and easily read Autocad, DWG and DWX files - all the way up to Autocad version 2005 - and generate macro processes and programs to perform direct write functions with the laser beam. The software utility processes lines, arcs, circles, points, and polylines, and produces direct writing with JPSA's excimer and diode-pumped solid state (DPSS) workstations on a variety of substrates, directly from the CAD file information.
"The user creates a CAD drawing that represents paths, or patterns, for the laser to follow, essentially the center line of the cutting beam," said Jeffrey P. Sercel, president. "The software will then take that CAD information and automatically program the machine to scribe, dice, pattern, text mark, cut out parts, and perform virtually any application where one would need to use the laser as a cutting tool."
The width of the line is controlled (in excimers) by the size of the image spot on target; in DPSS systems, by the size of the focus spot on target. The laser functions much like a pin plotter; the software allows the user to program a subroutine function and then execute that function every time a point is encountered.
"So, if you have a pattern that you want to make on a part," Sercel says, "And then you want to produce that pattern in a variety of locations that are anywhere on the part, you simply create a CAD drawing with multiple points in it, and the program will operate the laser to create an array of whatever complex features that you want to appear at each of those points."