Festive Cupcake or muffin Case guest post for Trotec lasers

This tutorial shows you how to laser engrave and cut a muffin or cupcake case created from TroLase Thins.

Follow our simple tutorial, which also has the option to change the size of the graphic or use different material colours. The finished product can be also used for cupcakes or as a festive decoration around a candle in a glass.​

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Required material

TroLase Thins Port Wine / Gold (0.5mm thick)

Trotec laser used: 

Speedy 300, 80 watts, 2.0 inch lens

Step 1: Design

Create the graphic in a graphics program or import our template. The parcels are defined as engraving areas by the black fill, snow crystals and border lines must be defined as cutting lines (width: hairline; R: 255; G: 0 B: 0). Additionally, you can add text at the bottom of the graphic for a personal touch. 

Step 2: Bend graphic

To bend the strip later to a muffin case, bend the graphics in Adobe Illustrator with the warping tool or in Corel Draw with the tool 'Envelope' (menu: Effects > Envelope > Simple arc > putty). Hold Ctrl and then drag the lines to the desired arc.​

Step 3: Settings

We worked on a Speedy 300 (80 Watss power) with the following parameters:

Cutting: power: 300% - speed: 1.5% - frequency: 1000 Hz- air assist: ON 

Engraving: power: 70% - speed: 80% - frequency: 500 ppi - air assist: ON - Z-Offset: 1mm - high quality: ON 

In the menu plate setup, choose start position bottom. Remove protection foil from the laminate and check the vacuum. Focus the laser and off you go!  

Tips & Tricks

§             ​Consider the cutting sequence: The cutting lines are considered bottom up in the production process. Therefore, place the outline at the top position in Corel Draw Object Manager.

§             For an increased vacuum cover unused parts of the table with paper.

§             Select the engraving start position as 'bottom'. This prevents deposits from setting on engraved areas which could discolour the product.

§             First clean with a damp cloth then dry, preferably still in the machine.

§             If colour residues are present, check the parameters, focus and check the rest of the laminate on the table.​​

For more guidelines and pdf files please visit : http://www.troteclaser.com/en-US/Laser-Samples/Promotional-Items/Pages/cupcake-case.aspx