How into laser cutting

>>1118846
those teeth will never has good precision with laser cut, also the marking

also the holes will make it very weak

not really a job for lasers

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>>1118853
That model is over 36" long, those teeth are about a quarter inch addendum-dedendum. Hence the skeletonizing, If I'm going to be carrying it around I won't want it to be stupidly heavy. The marking on top is also totally doable, I've seen a number of other people do it as well, pic related as well as numerous others. I'm more concerned about the getting the instruction files right

>>1118952
have u also considered the fact that wood warps

Most laser cutters have some kind of printer-like interface, you just click "print" on whatever program you're viewing your file on

Also, when you're cutting from a dxf file, there usually will be an order in which the colors are lasered (e.g: first yellow then red then blue then magenta and so on). You'll want to have the inner holes be cut before the outer contours (because the pieces might fall and or warp, which is what happens with paper). Also every color will have a power/speed which must be defined before the lasering begins.

>>1118953
Yes and no, yes I considered it, but I haven't factored it into the design. I figure I live in Arizona, not a lot of moisture to warp things, and there's a couple parts of the design I could take material out of with some sanding and a router if I start having interference problems.

>>1118976
Is there a common order to these colors? Or is it machine specific?

Alright listen up nigger.
I've never used an Epilog or a ULS, so I don't know how their workflow works.

The cheap shitty chinese lasers often use Lasercut. It imports DXFs. Make your cut vectors one color (red) and your engrave vectors another color (blue) and super thin. "Hairline" in Corel, 0.01pt in Illustrator, 0 pt in Autocad export, 0.01pt in Inkscape.

Now, if it's a ULS or a Trotec or (I think) an Epilog, it will probably work off the print driver, so whatever opens it will have to be able to interpret the fills. So save one version with all your engraves filled blue. Save another version with your engraves just outlined. Your friend will know what power settings you need for your material.


>>1118972
Most expensive laser cutters. Something like a big Full Spectrum totally won't.

>>1118953
This. Use acrylic.

Also, what the fuck is this thing?

>>1118976
>>1119006
Wait never mind some how I missed the whole
>must be defined before lasering begins

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>>1119007
Acrylic is expensive tho. Especially this much. And I'm El cheapo.

>>1119007
if you want to show up and have your shit straight, make sure you have your material bucked down to whatever size the bed is beforehand. Most good plywood places will do that.

Use quality baltic birch or something like that so you avoid having little airgaps that can fill with smoke and fuck your cut up.

When you say "Raster engrave" you don't mean you have a BMP or something in the middle of your file, right? You mean you have some filled vectors and text.
For BMP engraving it's more differenty, some lasers can do it, some can't.

Your uni friend is likely to have one of the better laser cutters, so actually, go ahead and save your engraves as black vectors, and just to be on the safe side, be sure your color profile is RGB, and your cut lines are pure (255,0,0) red and your engrave lines and fills are all (0,0,0)

Make sure your lines are all as thin as your software is willing to make them.

This will mean that if it's a Trotec, you're ready to walk into the club like what up. This is all I have for you.

>>1119013
Fair enough. What thickness of wood were you going to go with?

>>1119014
Oh yeah, and your clear... bit on the top, with the line engraved in it? That can't be polycarbonate. Smokes too much, defocuses the laser. Gotta be acrylic, which is super fucking brittle. Make several. Go to your local plastic shop and ask if you can buy some of their offcut scraps.

>>1119015
1/4

>>1118853
Literally not a job for any other thing.

Short of CNC milling it out of aluminum stock, what would you suggest?

>>1119018
There's a plywood panel on the bottom side that has the same hole pattern, I'm thinking of just using it to transfer the pattern to a piece of 1/8 lexan, and figure out the line later, but I haven't really thought that out too much.

>>1119022
So this thing is going to be fucking enormous, then, and quite heavy. Are you milling the white pieces or 3d printing them?

>>1119028
I tried to keep the geometry simple enough to mill uhmw

>>1119028
Also, are those stepper motors?

>>1119030
Oh man. Have you milled UHMW before? we fucked around with it a couple of times and could never get a smooth surface finish.

>>1119033
I'm not saying it's impossible, I'm saying teach me your secrets.

>>1119031
Yup. The idea is to have a calculator style interface off to the left there, but the calculations are done on the slide rule.

>>1119033
Nope, I heard of people using it alot for machining, so I figured it must machine nicely. I suppose I'll find out.

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>>1119028
It'll be big, but hopefully not to heavy. Alot of the long pieces have material taken out of them, like you see on the side plates.