Laser Cutting¶

Please find my group assignment here!

Reflection¶

I have never operate our lab’s laser cutter before. But I used to be a lasercut operator back then in uni days.. which is a long time ago. So I’m excited to learn and walk-through all the process again. Besides, both of my teammates are going out of town this week, so as soon as we finished our group’s assignment, basically.. I’m on my own! I’m in charge of operating the laser cut to cut mine and help them cut theirs. Here are some of my notes while I’m working with the Muse Core Laser Cutter:

Notes On Settings¶

Don’t forget to always check and readjust the focus whenever you change the material with a different thickness! I once made a mistake of forgetting to adjust the focus, hence my settings not working.
Don’t forget to always turn on the Toggle Air Assist before Run Job! Because it will be always automatically turned off once the cutting job’s done!
The higher the speed / the lower the force / the lower the current typically results in a more clean cutting and less burn.

Notes On Files Preparation¶

Muse comes with a RetinaEngrave v3.0 self-hosted browser-based laser control and design software – which I found quite powerful! For example, you can arrange your lasercut design object directly on the Muse proprietary web software! By using the Grid Array feature! At first, I tried to arrange mine through inkscape. But with this feature, I basically don’t need to open Inkscape, I can just load the dxf file directly to the software!
Go to File > Export Project to File to save your deisgn file in the muse design software format.

Notes On Material¶

Cardboard is not a homegenous material. Even with the same thickness, sometimes one cardboard is more dense than the other. Therefore, always try to do a test cut before cutting, because the settings that works before might not work this time, even when it’s with a ‘seemingly’ looking the same carboard.
Single wall cardboard typically need 1 pass, meanwhile double wall typically 2 passes.