Finding just the right settings for a laser cutter can be a time consuming guess and check process.  Additionally, using a calibration technique, such as the one detailed here, adds more time to the process of getting parts cut.  To ease this process here are the settings I use when cutting with a 60 watt Universal Laser Systems machine.

formica (add 0.003″ contour): Used to create smooth airfoil shapes.  The laser file does not store the z height settings.  You will need to turn on the z-axis and set a height of 0.025″.

The recent outage of uavs.us was caused by a vulnerability in wordpress 2.8.4. Apparently, the “update” function in that version does not update wordpress beyond its current version. So despite making sure that it had downloaded the latest updates, the website remained stuck at version 2.8.4 for an extended period. More details on the exploit and repair work will be posted later.