Non-cuboid laser cutter box maker program!

[matt...@gmail.com]

Hey all,

I was a little surprised at the apparent lack of programs for automatically making laser cutter layouts for non-cuboid notched project boxes, so I've had a go at writing one myself.

http://casemaker.mrdictionary.net/

This program should be able to make you laser-cutter designs for any 'prism' shaped enclosure you want: triangles, pentagons, trapezoids, house shapes, L, Z, or M-shapes etc. (Tip a triangle on its side and you've got wedge-shaped boxes for control panels, etc.)

At the moment it has a very basic interface and you have to type in the coordinates. If it likes the input, it gives you an SVG you can save and load into Inkscape to work on further, or export to DXF and then the laser cutter. It has configurable material thickness and minimum finger tooth size to support different materials.

It's user-unfriendly right now as I'm busy bullet-proofing the algorithms, but it should be usable if you're willing to draw out a plan of your design on graph paper and feed in the coordinates. I'm currently working on it to prototype a "Mattsteroid" shaped case for my oscilloscope game system project. (Just for you, Ross ;)

Here's some images:

Shiny shiny 3D render of "Mattsteroid" Ocelot fluorescent plastic case:
http://s30.postimg.org/nqnkniavl/matt_asteroid.jpg

"Mattsteroid" shaped enclosure test:
http://s22.postimg.org/srubp01w1/test.png

Triangle box: (14.14cm sides, 20cm hypotenuse)
http://casemaker.mrdictionary.net/output/20140513173312.svg

Different tooth-sized rhombus boxes: (10cm short side)
http://casemaker.mrdictionary.net/output/20140513164106.svg
http://casemaker.mrdictionary.net/output/20140513164251.svg
http://casemaker.mrdictionary.net/output/20140513164406.svg

Cube:
http://casemaker.mrdictionary.net/output/20140513165305.svg

It has special handling to ensure that the corners of the box are stable and solid. It extends the size of the base and top to hold in the side-face panels. The lengths of the face panels and the depths of the teeth at the face-face joins are calculated to ensure the material meets together fully, correctly and snugly. When assembled, there will be small protruding prongs where the corners of your material won't match the angle of the case, you'll have to manually sand these back. Once you've done that, the material should be the correct size to produce complete neat sharp 'mitred' edges.

I haven't been able to test it for real yet, but the theory is sound. ;) It might be worth a look if you're tired of just cuboids all the time. At the very least it should give you a head-start on more complex laser cutter constructions. :)

If you try it, please let me know how it works for you. I might have to add an additional option to 'inflate' or 'deflate' the produced shapes a little depending on how snug or loose the boxes are once they've been laser cut.

Cheers,
Matt C.

[matt...@gmail.com]

Tonight at Maker Night, I took the opportunity to test Case Maker to build a simple wedge-like case for my Ocelot Arcade System.

Here's the SVG:
http://casemaker.mrdictionary.net/output/20140514111427.svg

And here's the final result:
http://s18.postimg.org/rp4hed0rd/102_8231s.jpg
http://s30.postimg.org/c06pbj04x/102_8250s.jpg

Big success! :)

The generated teeth mesh perfectly. The pieces don't 'snap' together firmly without glue.

Unfortunately, due to something I haven't yet worked out you can't -directly- laser-cut after loading the SVG into Inkscape. It will come out distorted or the laser cutting program will crash when importing. John has helped me devise a work-around which I used to make my Ocelot case.

To laser-cut the case designs output by Case Maker, you need to follow these steps:

- Save the SVG from Case Maker website.
- Load the SVG into Inkscape.
- Save the file as an EPS (Encapsulated Postscript)
- Load the EPS into COREL Draw
- Save the file as a DXF (AutoCAD)
- Import the DXF into the laser cutting program.

If you follow these steps, the final cut will be exactly to the specifications you input into Case Maker.

I'm hoping I can identify the problem and fix Case Maker soon so that this fiddling isn't necessary in future.

[Adrian McEwen]

It's looking nice all boxed up with the parts in!  (For anyone who missed it, you can see it in action at <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4NVMO8ghXg&feature=youtu.be>)

I had a bit of trouble going from Javascript-generated SVG -> Inkscape -> DXF for laser-cutting (for the living hinge on <https://twitter.com/MCQN_Ltd/status/453208293746696193/photo/1>) but I did get it working.

I can't remember exactly what I did now.  I ended up with a transform in a group that contained all the lines - '<g stroke="blue" transform="scale(3.543)">' which fixed the sizing problems, and I needed (something like) "Object to path" to get the imported lines to come out in the Inkscape DXF.  I'll pay more attention next time I do it, and then document it somewhere :-)

Cheers,

Adrian.

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[Francis Irving]

Amazing!

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[matt...@gmail.com]

I've finished gluing together the Ocelot box, and I'm very happy with how my program turned out. You can see in the image the kind of joints my program will produce:

http://www.mrdictionary.net/stuff/2014/ocelot/104B8661.JPG

The top edge is an obtuse angle, so the teeth will overlap and fill the space, with small triangular pieces protruding that may be sanded off. If you sand them off, this will be a perfect, seamless edge. (A hexagonal box would look very nice indeed. :)

The bottom edge is an acute angle, so the teeth become oversized (into the material) to accomodate. Small triangular gaps are left which may be left or filled in. The teeth meet inside the box perfectly to give the interior volume you specified with the coordinates. If I sand off the extended teeth, it will match the contour of the box but it will still have the gaps.