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General

Computer controlled cutting

What is kerf? (Answer from Rico) - the laser beam of a lasercutter has a width. It is not infinitely thin (it is pretty thin)
- the width of the cut material burned away by the laser beam…equal to the width of the laser beam…is called the kerf
- if you want to cut a slot in cardboard for Parametric press fit…where the parts fit snuggly with one another…you cannot just simply use the thickness of the material as the slot width
- you must subtract the kerf (laser beam diameter width) from the thickness dimension
- if the kerf is 0.5mm (this is too big…used for illustration purpose only)…and the thickness of the material is 5mm…you need to draw up a slot with in your CAD software that is 4.5mm (5mm -0.5mm) to ensure a perfect press fit
- said another way…if you had used 5mm as the drawn dimension…the resulting cut width in the material will be 5.5mm…since the laser beam width will burn away extra material

Electronic production

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