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Charlotte Latin Engineering students need laser cut boxes because they need to store the things they are making and get more familiar with laser cutting
Laser Cutting Portion
I encountered one problem when laser cutting, and it was that I made my tops to small for the box. I fixed it by just making it bigger but then also accidentally cut the tops to close to the edge of my material and one ended up being a nub.
IMG_0013.MOV
For the design, I designed it like this as it is a very simple box to put together or take apart which will make it easier, I have also made a very similar box before so I was comfortable making it. I also put in a little peice of the wall to test if they fit together. All the lines are hairline, which means they will be cut and my name is not, so it will be a engraving
When laser cutting, my workflow looks something like
Turn the vent on
Open the file into coreldraw
check it for mistakes (hairline is cut/vector, anything else is raster/engrave)
click on file print
on the small cutter, change the preferences to the right amount according to the sheet next to it, set the peice size to your page size, and turn on auto focus
on the big cutter, click print and choose the material you are using from the menu next to what your cutting on the right, and keep auto focus off
on the small cutter, click print and then it will cut
on the bigger cutter, click send and then it will go onto the cutter, where you lower the bed height and focus the laser manually
make sure to keep watching the laser cutter as it cuts
recut if it didn't cut all the way
The only difference I encountered was that kerf made the pieces slightly smaller then I designed them to be, making them not fit together perfectly.
IMG_0012.MOV(above) the big box that I did to store the materials for stuff we are building throughout the year
Vinyl Cut Portion
I ran into one major problems for the vinyl cut, and it was that nobody knew the settings to use for vinyl cut. I think I cut 3 times before we found really good settings, that I will be using every time from now on due to how easy it was to weed after it was cut.
For this design, I used the text and trace features of silhouette studio to write out my last name and trace a logo. I have always wanted to find a font that is better to weed, but looked through and none had changes to the i so I keep it with the default font.
My workflow for vinyl cutting is
go to the send tab on the top right of silhouette.
make sure the lines you want cut turned a bright red
make sure the settings are right, good settings are 10 force 5 speed and 3 blade depth
take a cut mat and put a not oversized peice of vinyl on it
load the cut mat with the vinyl onto it in the cutter
click send on the bottom right
watch it cut, it will make a groaning noise but thats just what it does
once cut, weed
use transfer tape to get it onto its new home.
(bottom right) final image of the vinyl cut on my box
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