Laser cut a box, with the aid of an online box maker tool. Sounds easy! But that when things might go wrong! And I’ve developed considerable “trust issues”, since the beginning of this class : )

DO NOT ASSUME THAT YOU CAN TRUST THE AUXILIARY TOOLS ONLINE!!! Or you will get something like this (Figure 1)

Figure 1. Don’t ask me what happened, I want to cry

This is the product of a file generated from Makercase.  Apparently, it read the thickness of the material wrong, and I trusted it \_(-_-)_/. I should have checked the dimensions before directly using it. It didn’t look that bad, if that was what I intended. It looked pretty unique, and the pieces generated by Makercase looked better than those generated from other sites. As you can see in figure 2, two pairs of the panels are centrally and diagonally symmetrical(figure 2, the two pairs on the left).  The panels do not have weird unappealing teeth in the corners. If the site did not mess up the thickness, it could be pretty nice.  Additionally, as you may notice from figure 1, the box was very “nicely” burnt =_= . How did that happen? Well, I did do small sample cuts first and adjusted the power, however, the file just didn’t want me to have an easy life. The original file had the panels tightly aligned together–the outer edge of the teeth of one panel was tangent to that of the other panel. So basically, the laser cutter cut those parts twice. The smell was heavenly!  Well, everyone encounters failure, let’s keep trying~

Figure 2. My ai. file

By the way, there is a mistake I made in figure 2, see if you can find it . Clue: from left upper piece to the last piece: top, bottom, right, front, back & left. (The answer will be reveled in the end)

Done with the first one, I moved on to the second. I measured twice, checked the dimensions twice, reset strokes manually twice, did varied test cuts (Figure 3). Happy and content, I cut the second box. And unsurprisingly, it was again a failure… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Figure 3.  1 in *1 in & 1/4 in*1/4 in test cuts

The panels started to fall apart when I put them together. I did set the kurf to 0.005. I did check the file from Makercase. However, I was not checking carefully enough. Adobe illustrator shows the coordinates of the anchor points with 2 decimal digits when you hover the mouse over them. So I thought the 3 decimal digit was hidden. But later, after I check the transform window on the top , which displays 3 decimal digits, it turned out that Makecase rounded off the third digit. (I don’t know why I didn’t switch to another box making tool). As I entered 0.204 in as the thickness, it rounded to 0.2 in.  The thickness of the material, measured with caliper, needed the third decimal digit to be accurate! Consequently, I had to glue the panels together, which did not meet the assignment requirement.

Aside from that, three of the teeth of one panel was not cut through, while all the rest were perfect. I reasoned that it could be 1. the material is bent at that point, causing the laser to loose focus, and 2. the wood piece contains higher amount of resin, which absorbs a lot of heat needed to cut through the piece. To tackle that, I simply deleted all the parts that are already done from the template file, leaving the cut I needed to make unmoved, lowered the power setting, placed back the wood piece to where it was, and conducted that cut again.

With all the lesson learnt, I finally succeeded in making the third box. (Figure 4.)

Figure 4. Panels of the third box

I applied wood-protection oil, and I rounded the edges (purely out of a whim). I thought I might be able to sand the the dark cut out, but there are still some remnants. It generates an interesting pattern though. (figure 5 & 6)

Figure 5. The third box

Figure 6. The second v.s the third

In conclusion, easy tasks can always go wrong as well as difficult ones. Assumptions and laziness may always cause troubles.  Hope this lesson is enough for me to not make the same mistakes.

 

And answer key to the question above: The figures on the right two panels should be rotated 90º clockwise or anti-clockwise, or those two figures will be horizontal when the box is put together. It would look really funny if I didn’t notice that.

Enjoy your spring break!