Laser Cut Box | ENGI 210: Prototyping and Fabrication

For this assignment, my first step was to figure out the purpose my box would be for. This step involved extensive research on Instructables until I could find what I wanted to do.

Originally, I chose to make a storage solution for my various electrical components and began with these storage dr awers (I later realized this would take far too long after having lots of struggles with the laser cutter and chose a different design instead.)

I grabbed the pdf. files for the body and the drawers and converted them into adobe illustrator where I adjusted their size, stroke, and colors before attempting to print.

I attempted to print a couple of times, but had a hard time getting my test piece of the storage box to get cut through the wood. Eventually after several adjustments and still failing, I realized this would take a long amount of time to perfect and cut, so I found a smaller box, a very cool LED box. This worked out well because the entire project was cool and I figured I could use it to make a graduation present.

This new design however was only guided by the Instructable, and I had to make the box with a plan generator online and choose several images for each side. This part took a very long time.

First, I had to figure out how to make my images good for the laser cutter. I learned how image trace my images then expand and then make sure they had no fill and the correct stroke so they would be good for getting cut out.

Next, I had to try and get the right kerf. This took several tries as I didn’t get that the proportionality of the kerf was that the number was proportional to the excess material per finger, and I adjusted the wrong way to try and make the pieces fit. Eventually after a few tests, I found .07″ worked well. Right after that looked in the drawer of the pro laser cutter computer and saw that .085″ was a very nice fit and probably what I wanted in the first place. I also found I had to test the speed and number of passes I used to try and cut out my pieces. Eventually, I settled on a speed of 30% and 4 passes to cut out my pieces. However, this still was insufficient at getting all the way through, so I just took a utility knife to the back of the cuts to reduce the wood peeling and chipping.