Laser Cutting

 Laser Cutting

This week my group had a practical on laser cutting. I  learnt how to smoothly operate, startup, and shut down the laser cutting machine, be able to use Corel-Draw to upload my design to laser cut, and create a construction kit. After the practical, my group made some changes to our standard operating procedures (SOP) The change to the SOP was mostly about Corel-Draw for example the speed, power, and frequency required to cut different materials such as acrylic.  

Image of IMPROVED Standard Operating Procedure (SOP)



  1. Startup the compressor, fume extractor, and laser cutter machine.
  2. Launch CorelDraw on the computer.
  3. Import DXF file design to CorelDraw.
  4. Select the design for vector cut and engraving respectively. Vector cut using (Red, Hairline) and Engraving using (Green)
  5. Duplicate the design according to your needs after specifying the settings in Step 4.
  6. Press print option at the top ribbon / Ctrl-P.
  7. On the Epilog dashboard (right-hand side), turn on auto-focus and air assist.
  8. For each object, import the material used and specify the thickness of the material used for vector cut.
  9. Click on Print to send the file to the laser cutter.
  10. Check the file name and estimated time it will take to cut.
  11. Press the GO button to begin cutting
Wait for 1 minute before taking out the laser-cut product.

below is the test piece laser cut during the individual competency assessment




Below are some photos taken of our finished design






Reflection
During the laser cutting practical, I really enjoyed making and cutting the pieces to form our parametric kit. I was rather nervous and inexperienced before the practical but after the practical, I can confidently say that "I can laser cut" because I have learnt about how to operate the laser cutter safely. 

However, with every success, there's a trail of failure. An example was that my group tried to edit our design in Corel-Draw as a DXF file that we saved instead of editing our design in Fusion 360 before importing the file as DXF. Another example was that my group did not account for the slot deepness as the slot deepness of our 2nd piece was too deep where it took up 1/3 of the piece instead of 1/4 of the piece. this prevented the pieces from fitting together. 

Overall, I thought that this practical was really fun and useful because I got to explore my creativity as well as got to learn new skills such as how to laser cut. I will take my groups oversight and mistakes and learn from them to be able to laser cut and project my ideas easily in the future. 



Below here is the Fusion 360 Design that my group has done for the parametric construction kit.

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