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| It allows you and your employees to easily produce perfectly centered type & graphics on your customer’s Plaques, Awards, Signs, Boxes, Coasters, Crystal, Marble - virtually any work you do, with very little effort. Works with any item that is between 2" and 12" wide. Items that you now spend minutes to align and measure properly will take only seconds! This all boils down to a better product for your customer and a savings of time and money for you! |
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| First of all, we're Laser Engravers too. We found a problem that happened nearly every day and knew there had to be a better way. The one specific incident that became the inspiration for this project was an order we received to engrave a logo on 160 "Identical" Crystal Coasters. The reason we used the word "Identical" in quotes, is that even though we THOUGHT they were all Identical, they WERE NOT! Visually they appeared to be, but after engraving several we noticed that not all the logos were centered! Why not? Surely we put each coaster in the machine the same way. We engraved the same file. What went wrong? Why were we now going to have to replace several of these expensive pieces of Crystal for our customer? |
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| Well, the problem is that of all these 3 1/2 inch coasters, very few of them were actually 3.5 inches! We used digital calipers to measure them. Measurements were 3.41", 3.45", 3.51", 3.57", 3.62...All looked the same visually and in our hands, but once the logo was engraved, it was VERY easy to tell on many that it was not centered. We've built a reputation in our shop of being very quality conscious and we simply couldn't send out a product that wasn't our best. |
| We found on subsequent jobs, particularly Marble, Crystal, Acrylic, Glass & wood, that those pieces were not a consistent size either. True, most items are "close enough" and you can usually get away with it, but maybe you won't. Maybe, the reason you haven't heard from that customer again is that THEY noticed! Not everyone complains, they may just never show up again and they'll tell everyone but you! |
| Why the inconsistency in the first place? It's simple. any of the engravable items in our industry are hand made and it's virtually impossible to hand cut and grind Marble, Crystal, Acrylic, Glass and Wood to the EXACT same size every time. We don't fault the craftsmen who do this work, Handmade products are beautiful. A beautiful concept, and we can all appreciate their uniqueness...until we have to engrave them! |
| Back to our experience with the Crystal Coasters. To get the quality our customer expected, we had to measure EVERY individual coaster, calculate it's center point, draw a representation of it in our software, center the logo in that, move that art into position and send the file to our engraver. THEN, we had to be sure to match the proper file with the proper coaster! If you're not careful, this can be a logistical nightmare. Miss just one? Start over! Think you MAY have missed one? Start over! Got a phone call and lost track of where you were - is that File #42 and Coaster #41? Uh oh, Start over! |
| LaserAlign II to the rescue. We realized that if there was some way to have the center of EVERY coaster in the SAME spot every time, there would be no need for all the measurements and headaches. If you're centering your graphics and the center of every piece is in the same spot, you can create and send just one file to print and every piece will be perfect - regardless of how if varies from is specified size! 3.41 inches? Who cares?! 3.72 inches? Who Cares?! |
| Now, how to accomplish the task!? It took a lot of late night thinking, drawing and experimenting. We made prototypes out of wood and acrylic. Bought commercially available gears and fixtures. Nothing worked consistently, but the idea was there. We took our idea, drawings and prototype to a professional engineering firm. As usual, the right tools paid off. They understood what we wanted and what we were tyring to accomplish. A few prototypes and changes later, Laseralign II was born. |
| PROBLEM SOLVED! |
| This is no exaggeration. If you really think about it, you can see how you can save hours every week and even every day with this device. |
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