Weekend Builds: Laser Chopping and Engraving

Relating to digital fabrication, MatterHackers is your one-stop-shop for all of your gear and materials wants, like laser cutters and engravers. Whereas we supply a number of totally different machines, this text goes to deal with the FSL Muse and the companion software program, Retina Engrave 3, just because I’m most acquainted with that laser cutter and its workflow.

There’s plenty of various things you possibly can really do together with your laser cutter after getting it, greater than I may even consider. To present you an thought of what you are able to do, I’m going to work on three totally different tasks round three totally different ideas: reconstructing a 3D mannequin, engraving a sample, and creating customized packaging. Let’s get to it!

Laser Chopping a 3D Mannequin

Autodesk has a very helpful program that may take an imported 3D mannequin and slice it into layers that may then be despatched to your laser cutter or minimize out by hand: Autodesk Slicer for Fusion360. Whereas this slicer works very equally to a slicer for a 3D printer, it’s options and performance are tailor made for laser chopping.

You begin off by importing your 3D mannequin, which can pop in a bunch of latest settings like how large would you like your completed object with a preview of it on the correct facet. The very first thing you’ll want to do is choose your “Manufacturing Settings” which is the scale of your materials in X, Y, and Z. You possibly can both choose from a drop down of fabric choices, or you possibly can create your personal materials. You must be very particular on the thickness of your materials, in any other case a sphere could look extra like an egg by the point you’re completed.

When you’ve obtained your object and materials settings proper, you possibly can select your development method.

• Stacked slices works virtually precisely like 3D printing; it cuts your object into layers that may then be glued collectively to recreate your form. The “decision” of your end object is proscribed by your materials thickness in the identical manner. This would be the technique I deal with at this time.
• Interlocked slices cuts your 3D mannequin in two perpendicular planes, then provides slots to the silhouettes. All of the items will slot collectively to kind your object, nonetheless some fashions could not work on this technique, because of both overlapping slots with oddly formed fashions and even elements that find yourself too small the slot into something.
• Curve is like interlocked slices, besides the second set of items are at an angle as a substitute of parallel with an axis.
• Radial has interlocking slices begin from a central level on the 3D mannequin.
• Folded Panels takes the polygons of your 3D mannequin and flattens it out so you possibly can print it out and fold it again collectively to create your object. This actually solely works for fashions with a decrease poly depend relatively than something with excessive element.
• 3D Slices appears to be a technique to slice you mannequin into layers with out altering or estimating its geometry, however you possibly can’t really use or export this.

Stacked slices will convey essentially the most element out of your 3D mannequin, at the price of extra materials and time, however the finish outcome will look that significantly better! You possibly can select so as to add dowels by way of your mannequin for rigidity, however in my case this deer head doesn’t have sufficient area for a dowel to do a lot good. I may also change the slice route to get extra element, similar to rotating a mannequin for 3D printing to prioritize element. As soon as I’m comfortable, I’ll click on “Get Plans” to be prompted to export the cutouts in sheets as DXF, EPS, or PDF. DXF goes to be the only option for laser chopping in my case, however your laser cutter’s software program could favor a distinct file format. In that case you should utilize a web based converter to get to the correct file sort. Be certain that to avoid wasting this challenge so you understand how to assemble it later; there shall be plenty of items!

Now that I’ve the plans for it, I can import these into RE3. As soon as it’s been processed I can take away the total picture layer (which may very well be used to raster/engrave this onto my materials) and ensure my sizing is appropriate, as a result of typically that may get misplaced shifting from one software program to a different. It would be best to do some check cuts first on some scrap materials to see the mix of energy, pace, and present you’ll want to chop by way of your materials. For the FSL Muse, I used 25% energy, 100% pace, and 100% present for 3/16” cardboard and that labored rather well.

As increasingly more items have been minimize out, the immense puzzle started to come back collectively. Checking forwards and backwards between the meeting steps and what I had minimize out, I used to be capable of put collectively subassemblies because it progressed, till lastly the final sheet was finished and I may scorching glue and tremendous glue the previous few items collectively.

Engraving an Picture

This is without doubt one of the easiest challenge you are able to do on a laser engraver. The one prep work that’s wanted is to measure out the fabric you’re going to make use of and give you a plan of what you wish to engrave onto it.

From there, you possibly can both leap into your favourite picture enhancing software program, make the most of the instruments throughout the laser cutter software program (fundamental instruments like textual content and shapes) or import a photograph to transform and engrave throughout the software program. Dylan threw collectively a fast design to commemorate our Group Hex Wall which I may then import into Retina Engrave 3 and tune my engrave settings. I’m going to be engraving on a bit of Cherry MatterHackers Mission Wooden and with a pleasant piece of wooden like this, I don’t wish to be too aggressive it, for worry that it’s going to burn too strongly. As a substitute, with one thing like this the place you don’t have an opportunity to do some checks, it’s higher to start out with a decrease energy setting and do a number of passes.

For this plaque, we ended up doing two passes at 50% energy and 100% pace, and that gave it a pleasant contrasting colour with some good depth to it. Engraving took solely a half hour, together with the time to design it, prep the laser cutter, and prep the settings wanted for the design. If this have been one thing you needed to do batches of, it could be even faster to perform after getting the method right down to a science.

Customized Foam Packaging

I’ve had somewhat software case for over a 12 months now that I needed the proper use for, and with the Nintendo Swap being such a enjoyable and in style merchandise proper now with Tremendous Smash battles no less than as soon as every week within the workplace, it made sense to make it a case for a Swap controller.

Venegade on Thingiverse designed a very cool grip for the Joycons that I’ve printed and would make designing a case very easy. All I needed to do was import some Swap controller stand-ins and line them up within the controller case, colour the fashions black to make it simpler to hint, then take a screenshot from a entrance dealing with view. From there I may go it off to Dylan to create an SVG, or vector, file utilizing Adobe Illustrator.

Simply the identical as all the remainder, I may import this SVG file into RE3 and set the laser energy for the packing foam in it, and similar to the Mission Wooden, I solely had one piece to make use of for testing and last model. To play it secure, I set the laser energy to fifteen%, pace to 100%, and present to 100%, and surprisingly it minimize by way of the froth like butter after the primary go. A pair dabs of tremendous glue and now I’ve a customized case the securely protects my Swap Joycons for gaming on the go.

Whether or not you’re trying to create your subsequent hit product or simply one thing enjoyable to place collectively, every of those tasks ought to hopefully get some gears turning and encourage you to attempt it out. Share with me on Twitter what you have created, I would like to see it!

Blissful lasering!