We’ve shared the story of our Anet A8 3d printer user Tomas Aceytuno, who upgrated his A8 printer with a laser module, in our previous blog.

A laser allows engraving and cutting. Taking advantage of these features, you can do many things. Tomas shared with us how to make a painting with masks and colored sprays here with us. The masking technique can be used in many cases, cut vinyl and make stickers, cutted paper lamps, freeze paper and textile paint to make t-shirts, airbrush masks.

• You need colored sprays, masking tape and a canvas.

The canvas that I have chosen has dimensions of 20×20 cm. that adapts to the measurements of our bed or printing area.

• You need to differentiate the two types of images:

Raster: The laser uses them as a inkjet printer. (Sequential line by line)

Vectors: These are paths where the laser will go.

In our case we use a sketch and draw on the vectors with Inkscape (Free), illustrator (paid) or Affinity Designer (Paid poWerfully cheap).

• When finished, you can use Inkscape with plugin to generate the Gcode or control your Anet printer directly from the computer with Lightburn. (You could try the 30 day trial demo)

https://jtechphotonics.com/?page_id=2012 – Inkscape free plugin

• When you have your canvas and the “Cut” tape, you only have to take off the areas and paint with the desired color.
• When you want to change the area and color, you need to again mask the areas already painted with masking tape or with a cardboard cutout with silhouettes.