Laser Cut Box

The Cooper Union Open Source Lab has a Universal Laser Systems 6.60 (18”x32”) laser cutter. It can cut through arcylics, wood, ABS, carboard, paper, and many other materials. Lexan and PVC aren't included on this list because they release chlorine gas when they are burned. The laser cutter basically behaves like a printer attached to the computer. Lines over .001” thick and images are interpreted as raster graphics and can be etched on the surface of the material proportional to how dark the color is. Lines less than .001” thick are cut through the material in a a single continuous motion. Different colors of lines and graphics can be mapped to different power level settings for the laser. Adobe Illustrator and AutoCAD are the easiest programs for printing to the laser cutter.

Your task is to design a box or cellphone stand made out of laser cut parts. Use press fits and tabs to make the box easy to assemble. You can use etched numbers and labels on the parts to make it easy to assemble without directions. With instructor approval you can design something else. In addition to the presenting your laser cut objects at the final class, create a wiki page for your project. Include a zip archive of the files you used to make the design.

• The laser is on the order of .010” in diameter. To get good press fits you'll need to experimentally figure out what the diameter is for your material and power settings and over/undersize your parts to account for this. (see example file/template for a good way to do this.
• You can design the object in solidworks but you'll need to make a drawing of each part and save it as a DXF. (see Example Files/Template).

Instructions included in the example file/template