Laser-cut dry fire targets

poopgiggle · Feb 27, 2014

View attachment 6572I've been using the same 1/3-scale dry fire target PDF as everyone else for a while. However, the colors were all wrong and I wanted an actual mini Metric target.

Ben Stoeger sells a similar thing on his web store, but he wants like $1 per target. I'm not spending $1 for a piece of cardboard that size, especially when I have access to a perfectly good 50W laser engraver.

So I threw something together in Inkscape, then spent a little while messing with the laser settings to get it to cut right. This is the result:

This is the result of maybe half an hour of work, and they take about a minute per target (they would take less but I haven't converted the letters to vectors yet). If I want to make them more realistic I still need to tweak the settings for the perfs, but for now I think they look good. Also I paid $0 for them.

I've attached the PDF in case anyone else has a laser engraver that they want to try. I used color mapping for the vector lines, 0xFF0000 for cuts and 0x0000FF for perfs. Speed and power settings for those colors will vary depending on the wattage of your laser.

Robusto · Feb 27, 2014

Looks good! Could you make them out of Masonite?

poopgiggle · Feb 27, 2014

Robusto said:
Looks good! Could you make them out of Masonite?

People have successfully engraved & cut Masonite on less powerful machines than this one, so yes.

jtischauser · Feb 28, 2014

Dry fire?

The Antichrome · Feb 28, 2014

It takes a laser? That must be some awesome cardboard.

Can you print uspsa lines on one side and IDPA lines on the other?

Matt1911 · Feb 28, 2014

Could it cut Hans Solo out of carbonite?

Airic · Feb 28, 2014

Matt Rigsby said:
Could it cut Hans Solo out of carbonite?

This ^^^

We must know!

poopgiggle · Feb 28, 2014

The Antichrome said:
It takes a laser? That must be some awesome cardboard.

I'm lazy so I like just being able to draw something on a computer and have the machine do the work.

Can you print uspsa lines on one side and IDPA lines on the other?

I could I guess. But why?

Matt1911 · Feb 28, 2014

poopgiggle said:
I could I guess. But why?

you're on to something there. With Hans locked up, Princess Lea is there for the taking.

Robusto · Feb 28, 2014

Matt Rigsby said:
you're on to something there. With Hans locked up, Princess Lea is there for the taking.

poopgiggle · Feb 28, 2014

Matt Rigsby said:
you're on to something there. With Hans locked up, Princess Lea is there for the taking.

Sorry, I didn't know how to answer your question because I have no clue who Hans Solo is.

~~Han Solo had a brother but his name wasn't Hans.~~ Nevermind, it's been a long time since I knew star wars trivia.

Matt1911 · Feb 28, 2014

Forgive me oh lord of the geeks. I'll never misspell another Star Wars character again. Google will be my guide to the glorious galaxy of proper spelling.

HaileyOrdnance · Feb 28, 2014

poopgiggle said:
USPSA_metric_2.pdfI've been using the same 1/3-scale dry fire target PDF as everyone else for a while. However, the colors were all wrong and I wanted an actual mini Metric target.

Ben Stoeger sells a similar thing on his web store, but he wants like $1 per target. I'm not spending $1 for a piece of cardboard that size, especially when I have access to a perfectly good 50W laser engraver.

So I threw something together in Inkscape, then spent a little while messing with the laser settings to get it to cut right. This is the result:

This is the result of maybe half an hour of work, and they take about a minute per target (they would take less but I haven't converted the letters to vectors yet). If I want to make them more realistic I still need to tweak the settings for the perfs, but for now I think they look good. Also I paid $0 for them.

I've attached the PDF in case anyone else has a laser engraver that they want to try. I used color mapping for the vector lines, 0xFF0000 for cuts and 0x0000FF for perfs. Speed and power settings for those colors will vary depending on the wattage of your laser.

That's really cool,

If anyone is in the Downtown OKC area, there's a community center that's open to the public every Tuesday evening. They have a 50 Watt Co2 laser and as long as you brought the material you could cut a couple out for free I'm sure.

https://www.facebook.com/prototekokc (If this is spamming, please feel free to take it down)

- Matt

poopgiggle · Feb 28, 2014

There's also the laser cutter at the Tulsa Fab Lab. I think they have public hours on Saturday but I haven't been there in a while.

poopgiggle · Feb 28, 2014

DOUBLE POOOOOOST

If you turn down the frequency on the perfs it makes actual perforations instead of dark lines.

This is a learning process; I've only known how to work this cutter thing for 2 days.

HaileyOrdnance · Mar 5, 2014

I cut a few last night, worked great. Thanks again!

View attachment 6628

- Matt

poopgiggle · Mar 5, 2014

I'm working on converting the letters to vectors too, because the majority of cutting time is spent on rastering the letters. Simply outlining the existing letters was problematic because keeping the laser in such a small area for that long was burning the material. I'll post an updated template when I get it worked out.