laser cutter question (finger joints)

[Mr Ed]

I've seen quite a few people making finger jointed boxes on the laser cutter. This seems like a good idea and I intend on getting training when it's back up.

I'm particularly interested in making ones out of laserable ply and acrylic. Does anyone have any info on what the kerf is for those materials and how it varies with thickness (i.e. does thicker material have a bigger kerf?)?

I'm completely new to laser cutting by the way.

-Ed

[Peter "Sci" Turpin]

If memory serves, the kerf at perfect focus is about 0.4mm. So 0.2mm
either side of the cutting path. But if you're gluing things together,
that's usually fine.

Hackaday had a good mention of the varying kerf-with-thickness issue
here:
http://hackaday.com/2015/09/22/drawbacks-of-lased-delrin-and-how-to-slip-around-them/

[Robin Baumgarten]

I've been been making a fair few acrylic boxes with our laser cutter. In case you didn't know, there's tools and plugins to automate that process, it's really quite simple!

Online, there is http://www.makercase.com/.

I have been using an Inkscape plugin called 'Tabbed Box Maker': https://github.com/paulh-rnd/TabbedBoxMaker

It works like a charm. For 5mm acrylic, I have been using a kerf of 0.15mm, which I found a good value of not being too tight to assemble and not too wiggly.

[Chanelle Joseph]

Apologies, I can't see that there has been an update on the lasercutter and I've noticed you working on it twice since being in the space this week.

I do have access to another laser cutter but was interested in update on the laser cutter Hackspace.

Would be really grateful for an update.

Many thanks

[Henry Sands]

Hi Chanelle,

We're about 90-90% done with the recommissioning, we ended up having to strip the machine completely apart and replace all the bearings as well as give it a very thorough clean along with replacing the optics.

Everything's been put back together, but we've run into a problem where the laser seems under powered, we think this may be due to the mirrors but we're not quite sure yet, we're looking at anything that could have been knocked or adjusted during the stripdown to see if we can isolate the fault.

The cut is much smoother than it was before, it's also much quieter now. :)

I can't really give an ETA at the moment as both me and Charles are down with flu, but it's definitely closer to completion than it was before and the bulk of the work has been done.

Henry.

On Behalf of the Laser Cutter Maintainers.

[Peter "Sci" Turpin]

Do the maintainers have a laser power meter? If so, testing before &
after the mirror stages would presumably locate the problem.
If not, this seems like a useful diagnostic tool to pledge for if
affordable.

[Adrian Godwin]

I have a power meter that goes up to 100W. Happy to lend it any time it's needed.

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[Chanelle Joseph]

Great, thanks for the update.

[cathpro...@gmx.de]

Hi Henry, I haven't been at Hackspace since Christmas and glad that the laser cutter will get back to work soon. I am planing to cut letters out of big paper sheets... and was thinking of cutting the 315 gms paper with the laser. However, probably it's hard to tell when the laser will be running again, but if you can estimate this would be great. Otherwise, I will start making hand drawings and cutting them by hand. Thank you, best Cat

On Friday, January 20, 2017 at 9:59:12 AM UTC, Henry Sands wrote: