Hi everyone! For my second project in BIOE555 I made a laser cut box out of plywood using the Epilog Pro M2 Laser Cutter and Adobe Illustrator. Overall, I really liked how my box turned out due to the wood I chose at the beginning as well as the kerf value chosen allowing the box to stay tight.
DAY 1: Design & First Try (1 hour)
I started my box early in the week to try and get done before other students started coming in, but had a hard time finding the correct kerf value to make the box fit together properly. I had completed the kerf cutting/testing in my tutorial with Luke, but it seemed a bit too high and didn’t allow the box sides to fit into one another. I used a calculated kerf value of 0.009 for this first test and my material thickness was 0.193 inches. The finger size was around 0.603.
Thankfully, I only cut two panels so I didn’t waste too much plywood and was able to redo my kerf value to get a better box the next day.
DAY 2: Second Try & Assembly (1 hour)
The second day I went back with a new box design from MakerCase. The only value I changed was the kerf which I changed from 0.009 to 0.0075; this helped allow my box to fit together better.
The first three sides of my box starting to fit together.
Using the laser cutter was super easy and the instructions panel by the computer was great to check that I was on the right track. Once I knew that the sides were starting to fit together, I cut the sides with the engraving of the text necessary and Rice crest (since I don’t have a residential college). I did run into one problem during this print as I’d started my print with 2 minutes left in my reservation on the laser cutter. Thankfully I was able to stop the print between engravings and get the person after me to log into the Fabman so I could finish the print, but that was definitely a learning moment! It was interesting that the laser cutter kept its positioning when I stopped the print, resent the file (without the already engraved section), and pressed go as it looks like it picked up right where it left off.
The laser cutter finishing up the last few sides with the engravings already completed.
Once all of the sides were printed, I assembled the box with a little bit of brute force and “fist hammering”, but overall I think the box looked really good in the end. To improve my box in the future I’d probably look to take out as much of the burnt look around the engravings as possible by playing with the power and speed values.
My workspace after the prints/assembly was clean and I took a picture of the used plywood which I placed back into the ENGI210 pile to show the table I used.
The cost breakdown for my laser cut box can be seen below:
