In the past week, I learned how to use a laser cutter and laser cut a box. The 4″ x 4″ x 4″ box is made of 1/4″ plywood and was designed in Adobe Illustrator with the MakerCase website. Although I had never used a laser cutter, I had seen people use it. However, it ended up being much harder than people made it look. Overall, I enjoyed being able to learn how to laser cut and engrave and I definitely want to learn more about laser cutting.

 

My Process

Initially, I wanted to tackle the intermediate assignment and make an open box with sections to display my projects. Since the given dimensions for the various projects did not fit evenly, I decided to adjust them a little so that I could have a symmetric box. After confirming with Dr. Wettergreen, I adjusted the dimensions and used a website called boxes.py with the Type Tray configuration to create Illustrator files for my box.

Figure 1. Initial Laser Cut Box Design

Figure 2. Adobe Illustrator Design for Bottom of Sectioned Box (PDF translated weird)

However, after some initial testing, I realized that adjusting and figuring out the cuts would have taken too long (since I was doing the laser cutting Thursday evening). As such, I changed to the beginner assignment with the 4″ x 4″ x 4″ box. After some test cuts and advice from Matthew, I decided to use a kerf of 0.0015″ as the pieces fit together nicely but not too snugly. I made my design on MakerCase and uploaded the same pictures from my original box since I really liked them.

Figure 3. Adobe Illustrator Design for 4″ x 4″ x 4″ Box

After the Illustrator design was finished, it was time to figure out the laser cutter settings. For this project, I used the Fusion Pro laser cutter that the OEDK has. After some initial test cuts, I was able to figure out that 15 speed, 100 power, and 10 frequency worked well for vector cutting. For the engraving settings, I was having some issues with the engravings looking clean. As such, I turned to some of the blogs since some people had engravings that I really liked. After some research, I settled on 40 speed, 95 power, and 600 DPI for my engraving settings. Once my settings were figured out, I was ready to laser cut my box.

Figure 4. Final Laser Cut Box

After I assembled my box, I contemplated my options regarding the aesthetic of it. I ended up not sanding since I really liked the burnt edges but one side did struggle to fit properly. However, another side was a little loose so I really did not want to mess with that. Furthermore, I thought about doing some sort of clear coat, however, I decided against it since I liked the wooden feeling to the box and I did not want to mess up the snap fitting.

 

Areas of Improvement

Overall, I was really happy with the 4″ x 4″ x 4″ box that I made. I completely forgot to cover the wood with tape so that it wouldn’t burn so I would definitely do that if I were to make the box again. However, I do like the settings that I used since I like the slightly burnt corner and the engravings came out really well. I think another thing that I should have done is weighed down the wood a little more. Although I put some metal on the wood, it did not flatten the area that I was cutting well. As such, I had a couple pieces that did not pop off really quickly after the cutting was done. I think I should have been more careful with those pieces so that the snap fitting would have been better.

I think my biggest disappointment with this project is that I did not get to make the sectioned box. I was really looking forward to making a display box but I got busy with other work and had to settle on the smaller box. I definitely wish I had planned some more time for this project so that I would have had some time to mess with the laser cutter more and make the display box. Hopefully, I’m able to find some time to make that box.

 

Cost Analysis

For this analysis, I will be looking at the costs for: Adobe Illustrator, plywood, machine costs (laser cutter), and the cost of my personal time.

Although we have access to Adobe Illustrator through Rice, I did use it for a lot of the project and it is worth mentioned it’s cost of $21 per month. For the plywood, I only used around half of one sheet of plywood. From Lowe’s, a 1/4″ x 2’x 2′ is $5.96 and since I used around half of the sheet, it cost me $2.98. For the laser cutter, I used the Epilog Fusion Pro. I could not find an exact price but a range of around $22,500 to $45,500 depending on the model, so I will go in the middle and say $34,250. Finally, the project took me around 4 hours to complete, which is around $40.00 since I get paid $10 per hour as a DM.

Overall, the box cost $34,313.98, however, if we discount machine and software costs, it comes out to $42.98.