A box appears!

I noticed the person cutting before me failed to cut through the material even at lower speeds. I tried to cut a test section to test the kerf with the same result at 12 speed (far below the range) and figured that the focus was wrong on the machine. I tried to auto focus the laser as I figured that was the problem. The auto focus then crashed the machine as it ran into a weight. It then had an error which I was able to fix with the help of may or may not still be a Lab Tech, Darrell. The focus was in fact the problem and I was able to cut the wood at a speed of 17, 10 frequency, and 100 power.

 

For the test section cut that did not go through I figured that the char marks were mostly from the low speed. When I cut the size again to test the kerf, there was significantly less charring. The kerf of 0.004 worked well for the sample 2 pieces that I put together. The kerf however was a little bit tight to put together the full size box so next time I would increase the kerf. I would also add masking tape to decrease charring.

Changing colors wasn’t working for engraving so did it separately. The camera is out of focus so it’s not aligned to the center. For engraving I used settings: 70% speed and 40% power.

 

For cost, the sheet of wood used was about $6.88 for 1ftx1ft 1/4 inch plywood from home depot and I worked for about an 1.5 hours at a hourly rate of lets say 12/hour. 18 + 6.88 = $24.88 final cost