setup
The assignment for this week was to create a box out of laser cut wood. To create a 4″ x 4″ x 4″ box, I used makeabox.io to get a .ai box file. I used finger widths of 0.6″ and a kerf of 0.012″.
After opening the file in Adobe Illustrator, I added my name and some images of things I like. I also rearranged the six sides in a rectangular arrangement to minimize the area of wood needed. For my first trial, I attempted using the Epilog Fusion Pro laser cutter with Douglas’s help.
trial 1
The settings I used were chosen based on the reference table for the laser cutter I used:
- Vector: 3% speed, 100% power, and 10% frequency
- Raster: 50% speed, 50% power
The raster turned out very well, but I experienced a strange problem where the outlines of the box were reading as a raster rather than a cut, despite the stroke size being 0.001″ (0.072 pt). To get around this issue, I had to do the first cut with just the engravings, and a second cut with a file where all the images were deleted (just the box outlines). I am not sure if it is clear in the picture below, but you can see small etched lines of the box outline!
When I got the vector cut of the outlines to work, I noticed that the wood was catching on fire every other second and was burning a lot, so I had to cancel the print and raise the speed to 4%. That made the situation a little bit better but the pieces still came out a bit burnt. In addition, when I tried assembling the pieces I noticed that the edges were not matching up quite cleanly because I used the wrong material thickness. This prompted me to set up a new file and attempt a second trial.
trial 2
I had a suspicion that the box-outline-reading-as-raster issue was coming from the epilog pro software, so I attempted the second trial on the Fusion M2. Unfortunately, the same problem happened again, so I had to repeat the process and send a second pass that just had the outlines of the box sides. It was very clear that the Fusion M2 settings were much more suitable because the laser did not burn the wood aggressively at all. I was more content with how the raster turned out as well.
The settings I used were:
- Vector: 4% speed, 100% power, and 10% frequency
- Raster: 50% speed, 50% power
However, I faced a different issue when I removed the material from the bed: the laser didn’t cut all the way through. I tried my best to align the material the same way as the first cut and ran a second pass with 15% speed to make sure the laser cuts through the remaining material. However, I was never able to align it quite precisely, and it kept leaving additional etch marks which only made the situation worse. After 3-4 attempts to align it perfectly, I decided to give up on this and just go with the results from my first trial.
post-processing
It was quite frustrating that I couldn’t get the second trial right because that meant I had to work with my first trial which is quite burnt. Also since the tab sizes are wrong, I had to connect the sides together using tape from the inside as seen in the picture below. Trust the process…
And here’s the final product! It was pretty difficult to get the last side taped for obvious reasons, but I made it work so that it won’t fall off even when I shake it!
All in all, this assignment turned out to be much more tricky than I hoped initially. I am not exactly happy with my final product, but I made it work with the little time I had! I’d like to try laser cutting different shapes in the future.
cost analysis
- 1/3 plywood sheet: $5
- Labor cost: 4 hrs, $15/hr -> $60
In total, it cost approximately $65 in material and labor costs. It is honestly quite remarkable how little material it cost to produce something that looks decent!
