The assignment for Sammi and me this week was to laser cut two versions of the War Owl file. For our first attempt, we tried engraving each color individually. We set the stroke to 0.004in for the color we were engraving and 0 for all other lines. However, we found that as long as each color was visible on the same layer, the machine would cut every line in the file.

I don’t have a picture of our first try, but it was quite sad.

We then moved forward to try and eliminate the problems we were having. Jack had not yet told us that there was a way to engrave multiple parts at once with color mapping, so we decided the best way forward was to place each color on its own layer and then hide the other layers. That way, the machine only read the part we wanted to engrave. Since there were three colors in the war owl file, it took a minimum of three jobs to complete the engraving, not including mistakes and power/speed changes.

After all the engraving was done, Sammi ungrouped the lines on the blue layer and released the compound (whatever that means, it’s what the button said). This process separated each individual line in the blue layer from every other line, allowing us to select and delete all the lines except the outside border. We then changed the stroke to 0.001″ so the machine would know to cut out the border.

Here is our second version:

For the larger blue layer, we just used the power and speed settings we got from the Epilog file for 0.25in thick wood for 600dpi, which were 100% power and 50% speed. We then took a stab at adjusting the settings for the grey and yellow layers, which we set to 50% power and 75% speed and 40% power and 100% speed, respectively. We also slightly adjusted the speed for the border cut from 10% to 8% since the laser didn’t cut all the way through the wood during our first attempt.

These settings created a darkly colored owl with a light border around the RICE letters and a barely noticeable darkening of the claws. We liked this appearance, so we decided to keep it and turn it in.

We also wanted to try reversing the color scheme: a light background color for the owl with a dark border around the RICE letters. So for our third attempt, we engraved the blue background layer with 50% power and 75% speed. We then engraved the grey layer with more power and less speed (I don’t remember the exact values) and then the yellow layer just as before.

Here is our third version:

I’m glad I finally got solid training on how to use the laser cutter. Once I learn how to use color mapping, I’ll be able to do multiple engraving colors in one job, which would have saved us a lot of time in this project. I hope to use the laser cutter extensively in future prototyping sessions, potentially beginning with this upcoming midterm.