First, I got a 5 mm thick sheet of wood. It was considerably warped, so I tried using weights to flatten it for cutting. I planned to cut only one face at a time and  reposition the weights in between cuts. However, once I practiced placing the weights on different parts of the wood, I realized that some areas could not be flattened. It might not be possible to fit a box together with adhesive, let alone without. Thus I had to select a different piece of wood.

I found a sheet that was not warped, measured its thickness with a caliper, and place it in the EPILOG. Next, I zeroed the coordinates using the jogger setting and set the focal distance manually with a blue focus tool. Next, I launched adobe illustrator and drew a .2in x .2 in test square. I selected the laser cutter settings based on the 6mm thickness recommendations:

Frequency: 10 f

Power: 100 %

Speed: 4

The edges of the resulting square may have been too dark, but the cut was clean and  I decided to keep these settings. Next, I used https://boxdesigner.connectionlab.org/  . I input dimensions (6″ x 6″ x 6″) and material thickness (0.186″) to generate a PDF and then edited the file with Adobe illustrator.

I removed the information text, repositioned box faces so that only a rectangular portion of wood would be cut, and inserted some text to be rastered. I then followed the remainder of the general steps and let the laser cutter work its magic. Afterwards,

I prodded pieces I had cut and observed that the laser had gone completely through. I took out the sheet and promptly realized all  6 pieces were slightly connected to the sheet of wood still. With some light tapping, 2 faces fell free. Upon closer inspection the remaining 4 faces had lengths up to 1 cm long that had not been cut fully through.  I used a box cutter to cut and break off the pieces, accidently peeling some wood or chipping it.

 

In the future, I will either be more careful when using the box cutter or keep the wood in place and run the laser cutter a second time.  In this case, I think the box cutter was the right choice due to the time and energy of redoing a mostly successful cut. Also, in the future I will remember to set the notch length instead of forgetting and leaving it on auto. Lastly, I fit the pieces together into a box. The teeth fit tightly enough for the box to stand on it’s own. However, it could still be tighter. Pieces can be removed without much resistance and sometimes when lifting the box, the bottom comes off. I am not sure if the edges are too dark but am happy that the faces of the wood do not have scorch marks like I expected. 

If time using the laser cutter is $25/hr, labor is $7.50/hr, and material costs are $3 (I shared my piece of wood with someone else), then the total cost of the box would be $68. If I were to do this again, I could probably reduce laser cutter and labor time by 80% and the box would cost <$35. I would also be more adventurous and creative in my design.