Tag: laser

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Espresso Station

  • Build Time: 4 hours
  • Build Difficulty: 5

This is a little cubby drawer station I made to go with my Breville Barista Express machine. It is meant to store drink mixes, tea, espresso supplies, sugar, cups.

The Tools

  • 60 watt CO2 laser
  • rubber bands
  • Fusion360
  • Lightburn

The Materials

  • 5mm birch plywood
  • wood glue
  • sandpaper

The Build

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Espresso Drawer and Cubby Fusion360

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The main body with mini handles for easy lifting, and a small wall around the edge

The empty space will have a drawer that slides in and out for main storage of tea bags, supplies, etc.

Draw with openings on both sides

I designed the drawer with a 2mm tolerance on all sides and found out that was way too much. I should have done 1mm or less. I put the hole handes on both sides to allow for air to escape because I assumed it would be a tight fit.

My trusty 60 watt CO2 laser

This is my first project with birch plywood. I did NOT know that the middle layers of the plywood were not 100% filled. Surprisingly, this 5mm birch cut much easier than 6.3mm MDF.

Rubber bands and wood glue

Putting together the pieces was messy. I used steel wool to brush off the ash from the laser cuts, but it still got everywhere.

Wood dried and cleaned

I tried to sand off the dirty ash, but found out that a damp cloth worked even better to clean up all the dirty ash from the surface.

Finished product

I engraved a little coffee logo on the front just for fun. In retrospect, the design is much too long, I could have made it a little more compact.

Mistakes

  • top-front piece was designed with no interlocking joint and relies entirely on glue
  • the 2mm gap tolerance for the drawer is way too much
  • tried to sand off ash instead of wiping it down
  • design too long, need to shorten it
  • found out i added tolerage to BOTH pieces, doubling up on the gap
  • need to engrage the logo a bit darker next time
  • need to round off the fillet on the handles more to match the drawer handle
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Builds

LEGO Minifig Display Case

I previously built a minifig display case but it was big, heavy, and awkward. It also did not have a glass cover in the front and seemed to collect lots of dust, so I decided to redo it.

The Tools

  • Fusion 360 / Lightburn
  • 60 watt CO2 laser
  • staple gun
  • drill (only for pilot holes)

The Materials

  • 1/4 inch MDF
  • 5x3mm circular neodymium magnets
  • plexiglass
  • support board
  • sawtooth picture frame mounts
  • epoxy
  • hot glue gun

The Build

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LEGO Minifig 4x5 Display Case

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Shelves with engraved placement markings

I decided to make it 5 columns 4 rows of minifigs so 20 per display case. The Fusion360 design is totally parametric (I think) so I can easily adjust these to customize it.

Case put together

There are 3 types of material used. 1/4 MDF for the frame and shelves, the white support board (like you get from cheap bookshelves), and plexiglass for the front cover.

M3 nuts and bolts to hold the frame together

I used bolts for the 4 corners of the frame. I did not want to use glue. Here you can see the notch that holds the M3 bolts.

Glass with magnets holding the cover

I used neodymium magnets, 5x3mm circles, to hold the front glass together. The 1st and 3rd shelves have notches where I used epoxy to glue 4 magnets to the shelf. There are also 3mm holes cut in the plexiglass. It’s kind of weird, but works and I didn’t have to use any hinges.

Added the minifigs

I used a hot glue gun to mount the minifigs using the engraged indicators for perfect spacing!

Small collection of figures

After the first one was a success, I made 2 more. Still need another one!

Mounted using picture frame hangers

I used 2 sawtooth picture frame mounts per display case to mount everything to the wall. All done!

Mistakes

  • probably could have designed the frame mounts in the other direction so the frame can sit flush on a flat surface
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Builds

Giant Creeper

Don’t waste old Amazon cardboard boxes! I used my CO2 laser to build parametric boxes with variables for height, width, and depth to recreate this finger jointed Minecraft creeper!

Here is a look at the creeper without the skin

These are the parametric boxes. The head is 8x8x8, the body is 12x8x4 and the feet are 8x6x4

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Builds

CO2 Laser Control Panel

I absolutely LOVE my Class 4 CO2 Laser cutter/engraver. But it definitely needs some improvements. I’ve added custom lighting, camera, and analog milliamp reader to it and needed a control panel to manage everything. I designed this as an inset panel that controls the AC lines (which are connected to a new UPS).

Prototype test plate

My 3d printer always prints a little larger. My designs need about 0.5-1mm tolerance for fittings so I printed out this flat plate to test the panel mounted switches and hole placements.

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Picture Frame

Emma made me this beautiful ceramic heart for Valentines Day! I decided to make a lightbox style frame to hang it on the wall using slots and glue to keep everything secure.

Test cut done with Amazon boxes!

I designed the frame in Fusion360. It was built with 3 different materials and thicknesses: plexiglass, MDF, and supportboard for the back. This is my first multi-part laser piece.

Cutting like butter through the 1/4 MDF

These settings work for me for 1/4 dry MDF. 60watts, 10mm/s, 40-50% power, 2 passes (roughly 13 milliamps). It’s just enough to see the burn through the bottom and pop the pieces out of MDF.

Cut with the final materials

Pieces fit together perfectly. My laser hasn’t been calibrated yet so the cuts were slightly at an angle but for such small connections, it wasn’t an issue.

Added heart to the box, secured with hot glue gun

I added the piece to the frame. The light blue/white heart didn’t show to well with the white background.

Red really made the piece stand out

And here is the final product! Might engrave something on the bottom right later just for fun, but for now it looks amazing.

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Squeeze Bottle Rack

In order to save counter space, I designed a rack in Fusion 360 to cut out 1/4 inch MDF rack. The rack is designed to be mounted to the side of a cabinet, and use double sided mounting tape (along with some physics) to securely hold the bottles in place.

Here it is mounted, perfect fit, snug