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this talk will be held by Marina she's
she has a lot of fun working with
Hardware experimenting with um creating
files for laser cutting and she will
take you into the world of how to create
correct files how to avoid
mistakes um and you will learn a lot if
you want to prepare
things with laser cutting by yourself
and now the talk with Melina
begins hello everyone my name is Marina
and we're going to talk today about
laser cutting and how to prepare files
for a laser cutting job now this talk is
mostly intended for beginners so if
you've never done any laser cutting
before maybe you've seen a laser cutter
in action but you've never never really
done it yourself then this is basically
the talk for you if you already know
your way around laser cutters you're
probably going to be a little bit bored
by this anyway but in order to know how
to prepare files for laser cutting first
of all we need to understand what it is
that we're doing how the laser operates
and what kind of jobs it it can do and
we also need to understand a little bit
about the materials that we are using
now of course this is not a complete
guide to laser cutting and it does not
replace a personal training or
introduction on how to use your specific
laser cutter at your local hackspace so
always make sure that you have someone
to show you how to operate um your
machine that you are intending to use
for your for your laser cutting
job okay so first of all uh some Basics
on the Optics how does a laser cutter
actually work or how does the laser work
well we're not going to look at how the
laser works but what it does is it
produces light um shown by the um red
arrows on the
screen so um basically these come out
fairly col like if it's a good laser it
should be fairly columnated columnated
means these lines come out in parallel
so the light doesn't actually spread out
it doesn't diverge much and this light
uh is basically positioned inside of the
laser cutter on a horizontal plane so
the first thing that we need to do is
deflect it downwards onto the material
that we are actually going to work on so
that's this 45° angle uh mirror up here
and then what we also want to do is send
it through a lens that will basically
bundle up the individual uh beams of
light together to kind of focus it onto
the so-called focal point because we're
basically bundling the energy together
so this is where the energy will be the
strongest because we have a lot of light
a lot of of energy being put into a
single point on to the surface of the
material that we are working on so
that's what we want to do now let's just
say for the sake of argument that
somebody had been using the laser cutter
before you and they were working with 4
mm thick material now you come along
with your material and this is only 3 mm
um wide and what you can immediately see
is that the focal point is complet Ely
off meaning that the light that is
hitting the surface is spreading out
over a wider area onto the actual
surface meaning that the the um energy
per individual spot that you might look
um at on your surface of the material
will
will see less energy being induced into
it or less thermal energy in this case
so this isn't great because we would
like to have the maximum power or energy
being introduced in the material so what
we can do is I guess the most intuitive
thing would be to move the lens but
that's not actually what we're going to
do because turns out this mirror and
this lens is one Optical component
inside the laser cutter in fact this is
the optical component that actually
moves about on the horizontal axis and
in and out of this page so what we do
instead is we move the B head the grid
that the material rests on we move this
up because this can actually be
controlled so what we want to do um is
basically move it up so I left this line
just for reference uh this is the top of
the grid that the material rests on so
if we shift this up just enough so that
the surface actually coincides with the
focal point then we're exactly at the
sweet spot where we want this material
to be now this is what it looks like in
real life uh I'm sorry the image is a
little bit dark I hope you can still see
the details so here we have a neon
yellow piece of material acrylic
material um or some leftovers in fact
resting on the metallic grid which is
the bed of the laser
cutter and this is the part that can be
moved up and down now this black metal
bar at the top that you can see this is
basically the um rail where the optical
comp component so this part the mirror
and the lens will be moving left and
right on this rail now this rail itself
can actually move forwards and backwards
so with forwards and backwards and left
and right motion we basically cover this
whole 2D area of the laser cutting
workspace now as you can see here this
tiny little metallic thing if we zoom in
this is what it looks like you can flip
this down all it is is kind of a
measurement tool that kind of helps you
measure the correct distance and what
you want to do is you want to move this
material um up just enough such that the
tip of this um little measurement tool
just barely touches the surface of your
material this basically means that now
your piece of um material that you're
working with in this case acrylic uh is
in the exact sweet spot in the focal
point where you would like uh the
material to be in order to get a very
clean
result so what can we actually do with a
laser cutter there are basically two
tasks that are relevant one is engraving
and the other one is cutting so you want
to be able to cut an outline or maybe
even on the inside if you're using I
don't know something like a keychain you
might want to have a little hole inside
of it as well but usually it's a matter
of cutting around the outer edge of an
object and what you want to do is
introduce enough heat for the material
to actually melt or burn away to
actually create a tiny little bit of a
gap now obviously none of these images
are to scales so these are highly
exaggerated this is not what it looks
like in real life but yes it is a
subtractive process up ffan in German
meaning that you are taking away a
little bit of material here now in real
life this laser beam is obviously
I don't know uh super small it's like as
wide as I don't know a hair or something
you know so um this Gap is not this wide
it is barely visible with the ey
sometimes these edges are actually so
close together that you need a little
bit of pressure with your fingers to
actually push the inner object out of
its surroundings especially depending on
the settings of the laser if you didn't
fully cut through and maybe there's just
a tiny little piece of material left at
the the very back now this really
heavily depends on the settings of your
laser cutter this is nothing you should
really be worrying about as a beginner
so let me just say that uh if you have
trouble with that always check in with
um whoever owns or is in charge of the
laser cutter and can help you out with
tweaking the settings a little bit uh
the settings that you can play around
with is the power of the laser so this
can be attenuated you don't have to work
with 100% power and the speed at which
the laser the optic
so these components move about um that
speed can also be adjusted of course the
the faster you move the less energy will
be introduced into the material per
section right and the slower you you
move the more thermal energy will be
introduced um so and you want to
introduce just enough energy in order to
be able to cut through but you don't
really want to introduce more energy
than necessary because this will damage
uh the surroundings and can even lead to
the edges um melting away and looking
rugged or something like you you you
don't want to do that so that's very
specific but usually you don't need to
worry about that because you get presets
from the software that controls or or
talks to the laser
cutter um where you basically upload
your files into uh these should be um
stored in the presets that you're using
so you shouldn't really be worrying
about that now the other mode of
operation
or task that a laser cutter can do is
engraving now what you want to do with
engraving is just damage the surface
just a tiny little bit so yes you're
basically burning away a tiny little bit
of material here um but if you only
touch the surface just just a bit uh
it's enough to be visually um
well visible but it's not going to that
so this again is extremely exaggerated
of course it doesn't go in this deep but
again this also depends on the specific
settings now um here is an example of a
um acrylic keychain this is a very small
piece only few
centimeters so this is heavily zoomed in
and what you can see here is the cutting
the outer edge and this is actually a
good example because it's not a very
good clean job that has been done here
so the settings weren't perfect in this
case which kind of makes this great for
demonstration purposes um so two things
you can see first of all uh if you look
at these little things sticking out here
I hope you can see it well enough on
your screen uh that's a little bit of
leftover um material basically meaning
that the laser hasn't fully cut through
the material so there at the bottom here
there was just a tiny little bit of
connection uh which was thin enough to
be able to break out or break through um
but this can also cause edges to chip
off so in this case we were lucky
because it was extra material that was
left over on the piece that we were
actually that was the good part not the
extra pieces around it so this would be
easy to just simply clean it up with a
little bit of a cutter knife and uh then
you'd be good to go um and hand this out
to someone as a present or whatever so
um yeah this so this is okay but the
other thing that you can see which is
also fine because you're always going to
be able to see it just a little bit is
these these lines these tiny little
lines and what that is is the individual
laser positions so as this laser beam
moves across this line to cut it through
what is basically happening if we go
back to this image here this bar this
rail is slowly moving backwards while
the optical component mounted on this
rail is slowly moving to the
right so basically the bar is moving
this way the optic iCal components are
moving that way and the little like
steps you can see here that is the step
size of the motors actually so this
isn't the laser this is the motors
that's the step size of the
motors um so this is why you can see
little individual lines here now if we
take a closer look at the
engraved uh area at the top uh you can
also tell first of all I can tell that
this is not the position this piece has
been processed in in fact this has been
flipped around by um 90° so it's been
lying this way instead of this way uh
and the reason I can tell is because the
laser engraves on the horizontal axis so
basically the optical component on this
rail is moving back and forth left and
right and that those are the lines that
you can see up and down on this image
here so um because how do you actually
create an area with a single spot of
light of course you have to draw a line
and then move over just a bit and draw
another line and then move over just a
bit and draw another line of course this
would be on the horizontal axis um and
this is how you create an area so you
can think of it a little bit like an old
school TV you know those vacuum chamber
Electron Beam really heavy clunky things
with um with a screen at the front where
the Electron Beam would be converted
into V visible light basically it's a
tiny little spot of light um making its
way across the screen in lines and
because our human eyes are slow enough
we cannot actually have we don't
actually have the time the enough time
resolution to be able to see that it's
actually just one spot of light kind of
um moving across the screen so it
actually looks like a complete picture
and this is kind of similar like that
except that we are damaging the surface
surface of the material and this way uh
you can actually see the individual
lines here from the movement of the
laser
cutter Okay so we've seen what acrylics
look like but what other kind of
materials are there of course there's um
also wood now I always recommend
starting with an acrylics project
because acrylics are in my opinion the
most uh beginner friendly of all of the
materials because that's not really much
it can
do wrong with the material itself
there's a lot of stuff that can go wrong
with the laser cutting and the the you
know the processes or the settings but
the material itself is not very
problematic it's pretty easy to handle
wood can be a little bit more difficult
to handle so if you have proper
expensive wood that is
um basically U being marketed as wood
that can be used in a laser cutter it
will be expensive wood but it you will
probably not have any issues with it so
there's um mostly two things to look out
for with wood is first of all it needs
to be perfectly plain so the surface
needs to be perfectly even and not be
slightly curved and bent which you know
knowing wood especially if it gets a
little bit if it draws a little bit of
moisture or something like this can
easily happen so make sure that the wood
that you're working with is perfectly
level because if it isn't if we go back
to um one of these images
uh basically if you imagine this
material kind of curving up in the
middle what you get is basically this
situation where you're spreading out the
energy over a larger surface area which
is not what you want you're not going to
get a clean result you might get a very
rugged result for um the engraving job
or you not might not be able to cut
through the whole
material um if it's a a cutting job in
that particular um position so yeah that
is definitely something to look out for
all of the materials that you're using
have to be perfectly flat and even um
the other thing to look out for with
wood is that it not every wood is laser
cutable or to be more precise not the
wood itself but the glue that has been
used to keep the wooden layers together
so usually for the most part you will
most likely be using plywood plywood
means it's been glued together not all
types of glues that are being used are
actually laser cutable so if you walk
into a hardware store and don't pay
attention to um you know if you go into
a crafting store buy expensive material
that is meant for laser cutting you're
not going to have any issues but if you
walk into a craft into a hardware store
instead and buy cheaper Woods it can
easily happen that the wood is not
actually processable by the laser cutter
and in fact it's not the wood it's the
glue inside another thing to look out
for is that the wood needs to be
perfectly dry and clean so no oils no
resin stains and
neither natural resins nor epoxy resin
or any other kind of stuff on it like
all of the material must be absolutely
clean okay so these types of materials
are the mo most common and the easiest
to use and then there's a bunch of other
things and this is again not a complete
list um there's paper there's cardboard
you can use fabric um it's highly
recommended to use 100% cotton because
as soon as there is any other kind of
material in there you'd have to do
research on that particular material
whether or not it is actually um you
know can be used in a laser cutter
because especially synthetics can easily
catch fire or melt away and basically
not be processible by uh laser cutter um
you can stack several layers of cotton
I've done it before uh we we did that
for a Mass project in the beginning of
the pandemic we created a lot of uh hand
zone or or machine Zone handcrafted um
Mass masks and uh we got tired of
cutting out the fabric ourselves by hand
so we decided to use a laser cutter
instead so it can be done but it's very
easy to catch fire so again um not the
easiest thing to start out working with
you can also do lever um as long as you
make sure that it hasn't been processed
with any chemicals or Oils or anything
like that if it's clean lever you can
use that as well cork I've used before
that is also fun to do um basically
works the same like wood more or less
rubber for stamps the only thing I can
say here is yeah it's a lot of fun to
make your own customade stamps but uh it
has to be rubber that is actually
processible by a laser cutter because
the regular regular stamp rubber that
you can buy in crafting stores will be
made of PVC uh also known as vinyl which
you may not use in a laser cutter don't
do it uh and then there's a few more
fancier materials like glass depending
on your specific laser cutter you might
be able to do some engraving on glass
metals are even a little bit more tricky
so you have to do some research on what
your laser cutter can actually do um
also not every laser cutter can do every
depth of the material or the thickness
of the material so you know maybe 5 or 6
millim is already a lot so if you have 7
mm to process maybe your laser cutter
won't be able to actually process the
material but it highly depends on the
material it's self so uh and the other
thing to look out for is the maximum
size of material that you can even fit
into the laser cutter so if you have a
40x 40 cm square piece of acrylic but uh
the laser cutter can only handle up to
30 cm in one dimension you are not going
to be able to fit that piece into the
laser cutter so it won't work so make
sure that your raw material that you're
using it will actually be compatible
with the specific machine that you are
are going to work
with here are some examples of what
acrylic uh can look like so they come in
all kinds of different colors uh they
come in opaque colors like the blue the
green the yellow the black to the left
but they also come in slightly
transparent like for instance this black
grayish looking semi-translucent
um kind of acrylic so and the one to the
right um these are actually two
different pieces one is white acrylic
the other one is transparent acrylic but
there's a white protective layer uh
sheet uh stuck onto it that's why it
looks white this is actually
transparent the top left is neon colored
so unfortunately this doesn't really
show up well on camera but this is the
neon yellow that you've seen before in
these images it it shows a little bit
more neon is here on these images but
yeah it's really difficult to capture by
camera and this is a neon orange type of
color
now the one in the middle this is
actually a lot more interesting because
this is a mirrored acrylics which means
that it's clear
transparent uh acrylic with a layer of
like metallic coating on the back so
basically like a regular mirror made of
um glass where you have a coating on the
back if you've ever seen a damaged
mirror or scratch the surface you will
notice that the the property of
mirroring and deflecting of the light
actually disappears it turns into just
regular plain old glass and uh this can
actually be used pretty neatly um with
laser cutting and this is what it's
going to look like so the PO on the left
these are keychains I made for a friend
um a couple years ago and this piece on
the left you can tell that this is the
miror area and the milky white area this
is the area that has been um engraved by
the laser cutters so basically what you
do is you process it from the back and
you remove the mirror
coating here's another fun project this
was a stamp I made uh from laser cutable
uh stamp material this is also kind of
expensive but it was a lot of fun to
fiddle around with and yeah speaking of
which um there's a couple of things that
I'd like to mention just because I've
seen people do it in hack spaces and you
really shouldn't be doing this kind of
thing so first of all even if you think
you know your way around a laser cutter
don't walk away during a laser cutting
job I know it can take a long time
sometimes if you have a big a bigger
project or if you have a lot of area
that you need to engrave it can take 20
30 minutes for a single job to get done
this doesn't mean that you can simply
walk out and grab some lunch because by
the time you get back the fire brigade
might be greeting you at the entrance
door because you created a fire so yeah
this has happened before if the um
motors for instance fail inside the
laser machine laser cutter machine uh
the laser will think it is moving while
it is not and it will be introducing a
lot of heat on the same spot of the
material it will eventually catch fire
then the machine will catch fire and
essentially the room will be on
fire uh you really don't want this kind
of uh thing to happen so even if you
think you're safe you're probably you
might not be so just keep that in mind
never walk away for more than 2 or 3
minutes from a laser cutting job always
make sure you check back regularly also
do not just use any material in the
Machine by simply trying out if it works
like this is like I said before if you
use wood from a hardware store you don't
really know what kind of material is
inside of the plywood what kind of glue
they've been using so it's generally not
a good ide idea to do that some people
do it in heck spaces I wouldn't really
recommend it but if you want to save
some money it is doable but either way
just make sure that any of the materials
that you're using is definitely not PVC
or vinyl like for instance a typical
stamp rubber that you can buy in
crafting stores like the cheap ones you
can basically handcraft uh those are not
safe for laser cutting why because they
Le release some gases that can actually
Corr the laser usually chlorine gas um
and some of the materials can easily
catch fire that are not meant to be uh
used inside of a laser cutter so just be
aware of that so um on top of not using
PVC um leather might have been treated
with unknown chemicals be aware of that
fabric that isn't 100% cotton is
probably not a good idea to be using uh
or materials that are covered with epoxy
resin like for instance I had a leftover
some leftover acrylic pieces from an
older job I took the the Box apart and
wanted to reuse the pieces uh I made
sure not to hit the epoxy resin that um
cuz that was a glue that I used to glue
the pieces together and there were some
stains on it I made sure not to um laser
over it but something went wrong with
the reference point or something so I
did laser over a little bit of epoxy
resin I immediately stopped the job of
course but you could immediately smell
that just from the fumes coming from
that stuff like this is not healthy and
you really shouldn't be doing this and
like I said before make sure that wood
doesn't contain any oils or natural
resins because this can also easily
catch fire again this is an incomplete
list there's a lot more things that uh
you shouldn't be doing with the laser
cutter but this um is not what this talk
is about so um yeah get your
introduction from your local hex space
and make sure they teach you everything
that you need to know and if in doubt
read the manual it's really no excuse
saying that oh I didn't know this um
just just just read it up do your
research um it's not a big
deal okay so now to the fun part um
preparing files for laser cutting so how
do I actually create files that can be
read by the machine or to be more
precise the computer that talks to the
laser cutter and sends the file over so
usually what you will have is a computer
running a software like for instance
visic cut in this talk I'm only ever
going to mention free and open source
software so visic cut is one of them um
file extensions that this particular
program can read is the vector graphics
um SVG file it can also understand EPs
dxf and a uh specific visic cut
file so um how do you create these files
well there's multiple ways how to get
there one way is if you already know if
you're an engineering type of person or
or you've used uh cat software before
like for instance freeat or some other
Tool uh you can easily do that to design
to design your pieces and then simply
export the drawings to an D dxf format
and this will actually be readable by a
laser cutter or by the software um
processing the files for the laser
cutter so this is not an issue if you
already know your way around cat
software this is one way to go now of
course using 3D software or you know cat
software that is intended for 3D design
is not necessarily the best tool for the
job if we're talking about a 2d process
because laser cutting really is a 2d job
but if you have a very extensive
complicated project like I don't know
some kind of 3D puzzle or I remember as
a kid I used to have um these wooden
pieces like laser cut pieces that kind
of were able like a 3D Puzzle you could
put it together and it would uh
and end up being a skeleton of a
dinosaur or something like that you know
it was just some toy thing but um if you
want to create something that can be put
together to create a 3D object it might
make sense to use a cat software but
personally I've never really done that I
I mean I did it once I exported a file
to dxf just to try it out and see if it
works and it works perfectly fine
there's not much you need to worry about
so if you already know how to use cat
software then go for it but if you new
to it this is kind of a little bit
overpowered for the job so you don't
really need to do
that a much easier way to get started is
actually some online helper tools like
for instance makeer case.com and I'm
going to switch over to um the website
so if you open up maker case.com you
will get a selection of different types
of boxes that you can generate using
this software I usually go with the most
simple basic box to the left so I'm just
going to click click on that and here
you can see a preview of the box that we
are generating here now the first thing
you should do is switch to some proper
units which is millimeters because we're
in Germany here so we want to be working
in millimeters and not in inches um and
then we can Define the size of the Box
we can also Define are these the outside
or the inside measurements and another
thing you need to look out for is the
material thickness so 3 mm is good most
um material that I work with most
acrylics and most um wooden uh yeah wood
materials are either 3 or 4 mm 6 9 and
12 is way too much but you can also uh
enter a custom thickness and go with I
don't know 4 mm or something like that
we're going to stick with three for now
and uh let's define the height to be
maybe 3 cm let's make it 5 cm so let's
say I want to create a little box for my
electronic project and maybe it's a
longish PVC so let's make this
um 10 cm wide and maybe also 5
cm yeah tiny little box why not um okay
so is the Box open or closed of course
we can make it an open box like uh for
instance I don't know maybe I want to
have a decorative box in my bathroom to
collect my hair pins and needles and
ribbons and stuff uh and personalize it
a little bit and maybe write my name on
it or put a logo or something pretty on
it um I could do that but for the most
part if I'm designing something to uh
put my electronics into it I probably
want this box to be closed and have a
lid scrolling down we can also um see
the option here called Edge joints we
want to set this to fingers and these
are pretty big F fingers so I actually
want these to be um a little bit
smaller so let's just H maybe like this
looks good the reason being I'm zooming
in with my mouse wheel and I'm dragging
around just with my mouse uh to change
the view here uh so what we want to do
is we want to have these little fingers
sticking out because this makes it a lot
easier to glue the pieces together in
some cases you might not even need glue
like especially for wood sometimes the
Pieces Just Simply stick together they
also fall apart very easily so it always
makes sense to use some uh glue to keep
it together if you're using acrylic you
need to keep in mind that you need to
use special
glue um that is actually capable of of
gluing flat acrylic surfaces together so
that might be special epoxy resin that
uh is um and there's different types of
epoxy resin so you need to make sure
that the type you're using can actually
um
be used for Plastics as well but in case
of wood you can simply use um like quick
dry glue or a hot glue gun something
like that now if you don't have that if
you have the flat surfaces um like this
is not a very stable construction so you
always want to use the fingers
instead and when you're done and happy
and maybe you want to define the outer
or inner Dimensions depending on um do
you want to optimize it for the
electronics inside or do you want to
optimize the outer um outer Dimensions
so yeah um some decisions that you can
make uh when you're done you can click
on download box plans and again you have
uh at the bottom I actually never fiddle
around with these settings here I never
took a closer look at it basically all I
care about is download SVG you can also
use the dxf format but since we'll be
using inkscape for the vector graphics
um we are going to uh download the SVG
and then work with that which I have
actually already done so this is what it
looks like when you open it up now I
don't know if you can see it because um
I'm going to ungroup the objects and I'm
going to increase the um stroke Style
just so that I hope you can see it a
little bit better on
screen um The Stroke size actually
doesn't really matter as we will learn
in a bit but just so you can better see
what we are working with here this is
what this file looks like so this is a
vector graphics file that has been
generated by this
website and um I open it up with a
program called inkscape you can download
it at inkscape org I believe SL download
um so yeah so what you see here is the
individual um the individual parts of
this box with the fingers and the
cutouts and there's also some lay labels
to tell you what is what so that's kind
of useful and this is a nice box but now
first of all I might want to have a
label I don't know at the top so I might
want to
add something like this is my
project and maybe I want to use a nicer
font something like this maybe and now I
have customized uh my a little bit also
if I'm handling Electronics I probably
have some wires going in and out unless
I'm using a battery inside of it so I
probably will want if this is well these
labels aren't right so um if this is the
back um maybe I have a hole and I can
hold control actually to make it
symmetrical um and I don't actually want
a filling but I do want uh an
outline and let's make this full opacity
and also red in fact so let's copy this
color over to this object to make it red
and the stroke thickness the width
doesn't actually matter but uh so here I
could Define okay I might want to have
basically a a drill a hole into it that
is again we are working in millimeters
here because that's the units we
selected when we generated the file and
here with the height and the width I can
Define okay maybe I want
an
8 by 8 MIM diameter
Hole uh drilled into it to just to get
some cables in and out of the box so
maybe I want to position it a little bit
nicer maybe I want it in the center
depending on what my electronics look
like but this is a really neat and easy
way to do things now I could save this
and out like upload it or or copy it
over to the machine that talks to the
laser cutter and almost be done with it
but really not quite actually because
one thing we need to look out for is
that this is a text object and this is a
Circ Circle object this is not yet a p
so-called path so here is a bit where
you need to start learning about what
vector graphics are and how it works I
cannot give you a complete introduction
and tutorial on inkscape and vector
graphics in this talk but just be aware
that there are different types of
objects but what you want to be working
with is basically uh paths so right now
this is a circle object so we need to um
select object to
path and we need to do the same with
this text because right now it's a text
object so we need to create object to
path and now if we take a look at the
nodes we can actually tell this is not
text anymore I can actually
edit the graphics of the text but I
cannot edit um the text itself like I
cannot add or remove I mean I can always
delete parts of it but it's not like I
can click with a text tool and then you
know this just creates another layer of
text on top of it I cannot edit it
anymore so now I cannot edit my text
anymore but now it will be
understandable for the laser cutter
because it is in the correct um correct
format so now I could save this um
simple box SVG and transfer it to the
laser cutter and it would actually
work now that was a little bit of
demonstration here but when we're
dealing with um laser or laser cutters
uh we need to have a couple of things in
mind when creating uh vector graphics
files so preparing Vector graphic files
a couple of things you should keep in
mind well first of all you need to plan
your project obviously and select the
materials this this step always goes so
what you see here on screen is an older
project of mine this is an 8 by 8 by8
LED cube with 5 mm simple LEDs and of
course the whole setup of this cube is
it's a bunch of wires connected with a
bunch of LEDs so if you really heavily
bump into it it will bend it will break
it will not look nice anymore so I need
to protect it from people bumping into
it from the project from falling down or
whatever so but I still want to be able
to see the cube so what I need is an
acrylic clear transparent box around it
so that is what I created here and I
basically used that makeer case.com
um tool online tool to create this box
and then I modified it just a tiny
little bit to match my needs but that's
all I needed because actually if we go
back into this file you can see that um
this this height like if I zoom in here
uh the distance between here and there
um as you can see is well 2.9 mm so it's
basically that's because I didn't
position this correctly but this is
basically 3 mm wide so you need to have
in mind I hope you can see it's a very
tiny number here um but so you need to
have in mind that uh depending on what
material you use this Bo these box
settings will actually change so you
cannot do 2 mm or 4 mm with this kind of
layout because it it it won't match it
won't fit right the fingers of this part
won't fit fit perfectly into these open
ings uh so you and if it's thicker it
won't fit at all so you need to keep
that in mind so before you even start
designing your files you need to know
what kind of material are you working
with in this case I actually use 2 mm
clear LED uh sorry clear acrylic for the
LED cube and then this black acrylic is
uh back to 3mm LED so the black and
shiny acrylic is meant to hide the
electronic box and just for reference
this is this was the test setup um to
test the electronics but this is what it
looks like when it's powered on also
what you can see here to the right is an
example of um these are wooden drink
holders that you can simply screw onto
the wall this has also been created with
the maker case.com um tool and then I
basically edited and customized the
files a little bit in inkscape because
it's a pretty simple job so it wasn't
too much a hassle but yeah uh the more
complicated your jobs will be the more
like likely it's it might be that you
know it might be more useful to actually
use um a 3D cat design program instead
of vector graphics but this was still
simple enough to be able to do and uh
another thing I want to point out um
with the black bottom part here with the
LD Cube which is positioned upside down
here obviously uh but this is the bottom
of the cube and what you can see is 1 mm
thick wires sticking out and this
pattern of holes I basically drilled
quote unquote these holes into the
acrylic by um laser cutting them into it
so all I did was create a uh create a
square and then a bunch of circles
inside and obviously made sure that they
had the correct size and the correct
positions and stuff like that uh and
that's how I created um this plate here
and the nice thing about it is you can
work that this is very high Precision so
the holes are just slightly bigger I
don't know if the wires were 0.9 mm or
if they're 1 mm and then the holes were
1 mm or 1.1 mm so it's it's I didn't
really give it much uh much tolerance
here but it it fit just perfectly it was
really nice to work with so this is the
amount of uh Precision Precision that
you can do when uh laser cutting um so
you can do a lot more fancier things
with 3D prints but on the other hand
you're not going to get such a shiny uh
result and also depending on your
printer you might not get the level of
precision because when you have 3D
printing um the material gets heated up
and as it cools down it will actually
contract just a tiny little bit which
can actually create you know little
differences and a little bit of
Tolerance uh should always be considered
whereas with a laser cutter you can get
extremely precise
results
all right so you need to know about the
machine we already covered that you need
to be able to know what type of
materials can your laser cutter handle
not all laser cutters can do the same
materials Metals for instance can be
done by very big expensive and
professional machines but not
necessarily by the type of laser cutter
that you will find in your local
hackspace you need to check that the
maximum thickness of different materials
um is you know within the range of what
the laser cutter can do and and then of
course the maximum size so you know if
you want to fit a 40x 40 cm square um
acrylic plate into a laser cutter that
can only do 30 cm then that's not going
to work so you know um read up about the
basic settings of the machine or the you
know what what can be done or what
cannot be done with the specific machine
that you're working
with uh of course you also need to
understand the material itself that
you're working with so one thing to uh
consider is that if you're working with
acrylics and you want to engrave the
surface it will turn milky white so it
will turn
lighter right so if you have transparent
um acrylics it will turn milky white if
you have black acrylics it will turn
sort of very light gray type of color uh
of course if you have red acrylics it
will turn light red that sort of thing
so it will turn lighter it's the
opposite for wood uh if you
if you burn the surface it obviously
looks a little bit burnt so it gets a
little bit darker and depending on your
specific settings you can actually um
create different types of burn marks so
um when I worked with these uh the
labels that says drinks on the front
here I actually had to tweak the
settings a little bit because uh I
wanted it to look way more like have
more contrast so I wanted the letters to
be as dark as they are now because the
initial settings actually were very sort
of light yeah just like you could barely
read it basically so sometimes you need
to um tweak the settings a little bit
and when we're working with the uh
plastic mirrors that I showed you before
uh there's a couple of things that you
need to consider first of all this time
you're not working on the top layer but
you're working on the back layer of the
acrylic because the um the the the
mirror the coating is the reflective
coat is actually um On The Backs side of
the acrylic so you need to turn it
upside down if you're working from the
back this also means you need to mirror
your design because if you don't mirror
the design especially if you have a
non-symmetrical logo or if you have um
letters on you know writing on it text
this will be this will be flipped around
this will be mirrored so you need to
mirror it in order for you to when you
swap it back around the right way around
that it will actually read correctly
right so you need to mirror the design
and on top of that you also need to
negate Your Design so instead of because
what you do with engraving is you're
kind of emphasizing the area that you're
engraving and this is true for acrylics
and also wood even though One turns
lighter and the other one turns darker
but when you're working with reflective
Coatings what you're doing is you're
taking away you are removing the mirror
uh properties in spe specific areas but
the areas that will look emphasized are
the mirrored parts right so what you
want to do is you want to remove the
inverse so if we go back
to uh this image here um actually this
is the um this is a bad example because
I think here I actually forgot to do it
the other way around so um as you can
see the the the area in in this case
actually it doesn't really matter
because it's kind of a flame um but but
really uh it should have been the other
way around so you really want to be able
to um to engrave this area and leave the
other bits
out so depending on your design you
might want to do that or not so just
consider you need to mirror the design
in order for um letters to be showing up
the right way around and you also want
to negate Your Design if you want the
emphasized areas to actually be the
shiny reflective ones
okay and now you also need to kind of
understand how you are in the end
actually going to load the file in order
to be able to prepare the file
accordingly so once you load this um
vector graphics file into the laser
cutter Control software like for
instance V cut um this this file can be
interpreted in different ways so one way
is to Simply treat all objects equally
so for instance if we go back to this um
example here um what we have is that we
have a bunch of things that we probably
don't want to be processed and that is
all of these basically comments like I
don't I I don't want the bottom of my
box to read bottom and I don't want top
right next to the letters of my project
right I don't really want that so I
don't really want to but I might want to
keep these just for reference so I know
that what's what um but I might not
actually want to engrave or laser cut
these things so if you treat every
single object if you simply process
every single object these will also be
process I actually do this quite often
that I especially for more complicated
projects that I might uh put comments
into it why I did something a specific
way or what I need to adjust in order to
um adjust for something else or
something like that so all of these are
just notes to myself that I don't really
want to be laser cut or engraved into my
project so simply loading the file and
treating everything that you've got in
there might not be the best option if
you have a very simple file of course
you can do that but I actually prefer
sorting the file by
color so um and this I feel like is the
most intuitive way so what I usually do
is um I actually don't use black what I
tend to do is I use something like like
[Music]
um can we go to RGB maybe makes more
sense
uh let's pick this one okay so let's go
Blue so what I usually do is I take red
and blue like I usually tend to use just
because I'm used to these generated
files so I usually use red for the lines
that are to be laser cut and I use blue
or green or some other color for the
areas that are meant to be engraved now
I'll know that this is red so this will
be Las this will be cut right and this
blue area is meant to be engraved and
not cut
out um so and what I usually do as well
is I create a tiny little o that's not
what I wanted I want a square box and
I'm actually going to change the colors
of it so let's use oh I don't know
yellow
this interface has changed I'm not
really let's use green um let's zoom in
as well so we have green on the outside
and the filling let's make it I don't
know pink so now we have different
colors uh that are different from the
the red and the blue over here and what
I usually do is I set this to 10x 10
mm and I usually position it at the very
top left corner so now I not only have
um a little bit uh of a reference in
terms of size but also I have a little
bit of a test object so what I usually
do when I load my file into the laser
cutting software is I tend to process
this one first because I actually want
to test the material so I tend to find a
corner or make space at the top left
corner because this is actually a really
good reference point because this will
also be the reference point of your
actual laser cutter like the home
position of the laser itself once you
like that's something you need to adjust
but somebody will show you how to how to
do that on the laser cutter but this is
basically your point of reference so if
you want to um start over where you left
off last time this is actually really
good to have this corner here defined on
your material because there might be an
offset like the material itself might be
a little bit bigger and you might might
decide if the edges aren't clean or
something like that or a little bit
dirty or something I don't know
scratched you might want to decide to
move everything in a little bit so um
this might not correspond to the actual
outer edge of your material but this
corresponds to the um reference point of
your laser beam so what I usually do is
I would open up this file in visic cut
and then select cut everything that's
green and engrave everything that's pink
and ignore everything else so I'm
basically ignoring the rest of the
project and what I really want to find
out is for that specific material that
I'm using are the laser cutting settings
correct and does everything work the way
I want it so this is both a reference
point and a bit of a material test now
if you're repeating uh the same project
with the same kind of material over and
over again of course you don't need to
do this every time so if I actually
already you know if there's multiple
boxes like uh we had before for like the
you know here I have a whole stack of uh
four drink holder boxes that are all
pretty much
identical um I don't need to have this
point of reference every single time so
next time I actually want to process the
job I will open up this file and simply
tell visic cut please cut everything
that is red and please engrave
everything that is blue and ignore the
rest which means both ignoring this
reference point at the top but also
ignoring these comments or labels that
we have in the file that we don't
actually want
processed so that's why I recommend
using Color uh because it's the most
intuitive to um to deal with uh
yeah and then you also need to
understand how the laser cutter or how
actually the software of the laser
cutter
interprets the file the objects in your
file so these are the really important
things to look out for so basically what
I said before I already spoilered it a
little bit um this as a text um object
will not be depending on the software
might be processable but might not be
especially if you're using Uh custom
fonts this will change if you open up on
a different computer where the font
isn't installed so you really don't want
to be using fonts you want to always
convert fonts into Vector uh
paths um but another thing to look out
for is that uh like I said before the
thickness of a line doesn't matter so if
I look at the definition of this I can
see that there are four nodes four path
nodes defined for this path and they
obviously have a magnitude because
otherwise it wouldn't be a vector it
would only be coordinates um so yeah uh
this is what it actually looks like and
then there is one setting that basically
tells you the stroke width and I can
change this but the path itself is this
it's a single line that goes around in a
circle so what the laser cutter does is
the laser itself does not have variable
width it has one specific width which is
extremely tiny so in other words uh the
if you want to engrave this for instance
uh instead of cutting it uh you would
like okay let's let's um create
something else here let's
say uh we want to have this again let's
get rid
of the
filling and let's pick a
different color here and let's make it a
lot
thicker so let's say you want to create
a logo that looks something like this
and maybe you're putting I don't know a
letter inside of it or something uh to
make it look nice something like this um
and maybe this is something you want to
engrave now here's the thing
though uh this is not how it will be
interpreted because what this really is
is it's a definition of a circle so the
first thing we need to do is we need to
create object to path so now we have
just like this one we have a circle
defined by four points
that has a stroke thickness if I was to
engrave this you would not get an area
like you could see on screen this is not
what is going to be processed what is
going to be processed is the actual path
itself which actually looks like this so
what the laser is going to do it's going
to engrave a single tiny little line
that is going to look like you scratched
the surface of of your material because
it's really really thin and that is the
line the thickness of the line the
definition of the thickness doesn't
matter so it you can even set this to
zero uh it would still be processed as a
single line it doesn't matter what this
looks like so there's what you see on
screen is not the result that you get
you always need to understand how this
particular object has been defined and
what it actually is so even if it looks
like a filling like we had before right
so here it looks like this is an area
that is filled out in fact it is not if
you want this to be an area you have to
create it a different way um so lines
really aren't for Engraving but what
they are good for is for cutting the
outline so for instance
um uh yeah basically like here the green
area out here this would be the outline
of the square and this would perfectly
work actually I think I forgot to
convert this so This I also need to
convert to a path so now it is defined
by four spots uh or nodes actually um
see it's really easy to make mistakes
and forget about things and then uh
stuff doesn't work the way you want it
to so always double check that all of
your objects are paths and not any other
type of object like a square a circle a
star um a spiral there's a lot of fancy
stuff you can do but like you always
need to make sure you always do either
stroke to path or object to path in the
end everything needs to be a path as an
object another thing um to look so yeah
let's stick to lines first so lines are
really there for being processed by
cutting so uh like I said here the
stroke thickness is irrelevant each line
will be as thick as the diameter of the
laser beam and that is pretty tiny so
lines can be cut lines can technically
also be engraved but you don't really
want to do it it's going to look like
you scratch the surface and it will
basically be invisible so unless you
just want to have some almost invisible
markings for later reference you can
maybe do it but it's just going to mess
up the result it's us it's usually not
what you want but on the other hand
areas which are fillings can not be cut
but can be engraved so areas are for
Engraving uh but not cutting so going
back to this this is not a filling this
is a filling this is not a filling this
is a line thickness so always make sure
that just because it looks like it's an
area it doesn't technically have to be
one because if you look at the settings
here this is the stroke color and if and
filling isn't even active if I was to
fill this in this is the actual filling
this I could laser uh sorry not laser
cut this I could
engrave um but it would not be cutable
but the outer blue area that is not you
cannot engrave that I mean you can but
it's going to be one Thin Line okay so
that is something to keep in
mind like I said before what you see on
screen is not what you get another
typical mistake to make is to layer
objects so for instance to have this
kind of result like you want let's say
you want this are you want to create
this circle with um as an area right so
what you could do instead is create
another
Circle with a filling and not a stroke
paint so now we have a pink circle um
let's actually make it look the same
we're going to pick this color uh and
now we are going to create a second
Circle that is
smaller and we're going to turn it
white and I'm going to move it into the
center and there's some neat little
tricks with arranging things where you
can actually Center objects to one
another and now I could even group the
object object so now when I pick it and
drag it around it looks like it's one
object just like this one is one object
right um I could like if you're looking
for the group ungroup options you can
find those uh here group and ungroup I
always use the shortcuts because if you
work a lot with visic cut you will it's
a lot faster to Simply use the shortcuts
so on grouping you will see that there
are two outlines uh these are two
separate objects and this is simply
placed on top of the other one what this
means is that even though let's just
make this one a tiny
bit
smaller and Center it so now it looks
almost the same but you can already tell
you can see through this one right
because you can see the red line behind
it whereas here um you cannot see the
red line behind it because this is not a
cutout if you have have a clear
background you will not be able to tell
the difference right this looks exactly
the same but it isn't so neither one is
actually going to do what he wanted to
do because in this case what the laser
cutter will do it will interpret the
Blue Area engrave the full area which
continues behind this white
circle um and then it will process the
white area and if you tell it to do
nothing nothing will happen so what you
will actually get as a result
is
this because the white area is ignored
or you could tell it to also process the
white area in which case it would
engrave on top of the already engraved
material so you get a double engraving
in the center um in each case um you
will be able to tell the difference but
it will not be unengraved because you
processed it and you process processed
it twice so again this is not what you
were going for so if you actually wanted
this outer ring to be um processed you
would have to subtract one object from
the other one and now now only now you
can tell that this is one object and it
actually ends here and this is the
filling so only this object here will
actually give you the result that you
were going for and then of course you
can choose to put another letter in
there and then choose I don't know
probably if you want to engrave it you
would have to also convert it to a path
and then also change the filling um to
this
blue so yeah that's already good let's
get rid of this one because we don't
really want that so this would be your
very simple um
logo these two things uh this would be
this would work like you you could put
this maybe at the you know let's uh
let's get rid of this uh maybe I have a
label this is my project and this is my
logo so there you go pretty little
box maybe so yeah so this is just an
example of things to look out for so
basically what you see on screen is not
what you get this is not graphics design
if you were to export these two blue
circles as a graphics file as a PNG or
jpeg both would look exactly the same on
screen you would not be able to tell the
difference in terms of Graphics design
but the laser cutter will actually read
the technical information that is stored
inside of the vector graphics files so
it doesn't really care about what it
looks like on screen it will actually
process the individual objects so
layering objects is a really bad idea
don't do it you get or invisible objects
will also be processed if you have um if
you turn the transparency down or if you
have really thin lines that are
basically invisible you might get really
funny things happening in your layout
out um that you won't be able to see on
screen but um you will see it later on
the laser cut file uh when I started out
laser cutting it took me it took me
quite a while to figure all this stuff
out because nobody told me so and uh
figuring out like you need to start with
a super clean um file and you if you are
like editing a file that already exists
you really need to take your time to
clean up a logo or anything that you are
processing you really need to clean that
file up because Graphics designers do a
lot of little things that are not really
meant to be used for laser cutting so
you really need to watch out for that
another mistake that I made before is to
have too much detail in the definition
of the file so of course these aren't
very complicated um uh objects so let's
um just zoom in here and do something I
don't know super complicated
here and there we go and if we look at
the definition of it um if we take a
look at the
notes uh let's actually change this a
little bit to a lighter setting so we
can see better so if we look at the
notes it's fine it's not too many like
this is a little bit crowded right so
that's a lot of spots right next to each
other so this I guess would be fine but
if you zoom out it's quite a bit of
detail
and you can
actually if your if your file looks like
this right then it's way too much detail
there is a function
um to simplify a
path and you can see
now from this I went a step back now I'm
going forward it simplified it
enormously right so all of this extra
information is actually if you look at
it it's not going to make like it
doesn't I'm going back and forth now you
can barely tell any difference at all so
let's just take a circle again just for
another example so this one is defined
by four spots and that is actually
enough I can of course just simply add
more information but this is not going
to change anything about what it looks
like but what it will do um again if I
had this kind of situation I would go to
path and then
simplify uh and you can see it hasn't
simplified the same way like it was
before it's a few notes more than it was
before but that's fine I can maybe
simplify even further and further and
you can actually repeat this step quite
a number of
times um and most of the time yeah it's
not really doing much anymore at this
point uh so you can play around with the
setting at the very end because if you
have something very crowded with a lot
of notes um basically uh what the laser
cutter does is it tries to process each
individual note right and then
especially in this kind of corner you
will have a lot of heat introduction in
in in these kinds of especially this one
here and this area here um basically it
would completely burn or melt the
material believe me it happened to me
before because I had way too much uh
graphical information inside the file
that wasn't even necessary for the
result that I was going for so if you
have something more complicated always
check and see if you cannot uh
simplify uh the path just a tiny little
bit if you notice that you are losing
information you can always step back and
undo the last simplification process
sometimes there's too much
simplification happening uh but if
that's the case uh yeah simply simply
undo the last step and then you're good
and that should be fine because
otherwise you might actually be burning
holes into your um into the details and
actually to start out with uh we already
had the setting before when we created
this uh little box file so uh it was
already set to millimeter units because
that's what we selected here on the
website uh we set it to millimeters but
if you're creating a um new file then
you should always check the page
settings uh uh that's the
wrong that's the wrong software um here
it is document properties always check
this one here and you should have a
format for the page and also the display
unit so make sure that both of them are
set to millimeters and not pixels
because that's usually what Graphics
designers will work with but make sure
you always switch it to millimeters to
have an accurate representation of the
size that you're working with you can
can always resize the file later on
inside of the laser cutter software but
um I don't really like doing that
especially if you're trying to work on
something with a lot of precision like
we had with um where was it the here the
LED cube and these tiny little holes I
don't really want there to be any offset
because it will not be compatible with
what I've been doing here so I want this
to be absolutely precise so what I do
instead is I make sure the file is
absolutely correct and when I load it
into the um laser cutting software like
visic cut or something I make sure that
um there will be no rescaling happening
and it will be processed exactly the way
that I created it so if you have clean
files you will get clean
results so yeah make
sure3 set the settings to millimeters
not pixels just especially if you
working with uh something where you need
precision
like I already mentioned if you put a
tiny little square it doesn't have to be
10 x 10 millim it could also be 5x 5
millim but this is super useful to have
as a reference point and especially if
something goes wrong uh that you can
always reset your reference point uh and
have a clear definition of a reference
this is especially um useful if you are
working with round objects so um if you
were to uh not have this box which
obviously is very square or quadratic uh
but instead you were working with this
thing over here and let's get rid of all
of the rest uh you would actually have
this corner left over now maybe you know
this is probably going to be bigger
um this like where do you set your
reference point for the laser cutter the
the zero coordinate of the system like
this is really difficult to do if you
have a round um rounded Edge at the at
the edge and not a clear corner like
here if you have that of course it's not
necessary necessary but like I said
before it's always a good idea to check
the presets that you're using um at the
laser cutter where you need to select
the type of material that you're using
and also the thickness of the material
so are you using wood which type of wood
are you using and what's the thickness
of the material and then just uh process
this tiny little uh square and make sure
that with that particular preset you've
loaded from the the software that it
will actually be able to cut through the
material and not only just halfway or
something like that uh and this way you
only messed up just a tiny little corner
of your piece and not the whole thing
because if you immediately jump into uh
processing your maybe much bigger
elaborate file you may have already
messed up um your material and if it's a
bigger project this can be very
expensive and very annoy
Wing so yeah uh those are my tips this
is only the kind of basic information
that we are going to look at in a little
more detail in the more interactive
Workshop that will follow this talk this
Workshop session will not be recorded So
if you are watching this talk in the
future as a recording I'm sorry you
missed it you can download inkscape at
inkscape.svg all the things that I've
shown you here today if some of it
wasn't very clear enough uh then we can
talk about it uh in the live Workshop um
same goes for the Q&A session will also
be happening in the workshop if you're
watching the recording in the future you
can always uh also get in touch with me
uh by email send me an email at
Marina or
dode all right so please if you want to
join the workshop download scape install
it before you join the session and the
link will be provided to you and see you
in a bit thanks
bye so you're all experts in laser
cutting now um this talk was a recording
from yesterday so we will have a
question and answer following in the big
blue button you can find the link in the
pre-
talks
and the next talk after that one will
be on finger up which will be held in
German
no
moment yeah um you you um there will be
a Q&A following in the Big Blue Button
you
will
okay so um the first question is why not
move the focal point to the mid of
material thickness but to the
top yes thank you BookIt um just to
clear up the confusion a little bit uh
we streamed this talk yesterday and
there was a workshop following this talk
uh so that's what I um said in the um in
the recording uh but uh now we are
having a Q&A here if there's any more
questions we can have an extend Q&A
following this stream in the big blue
button link uh that you will find in the
pre- talks description sorry about that
confusion uh so to get back to um the
question um if we could maybe show my
slides I will scroll back to there was a
question concerning slide number five I
believe yes and um so the question is
why is the focal point on the top of the
material um um actually I wasn't
entirely sure about this because um most
uh documents manuals and such that you
will find will not actually give you
this kind of information yesterday in
the workshop I learned that the focal
point is actually within the material
like one3 down or something like that uh
which totally makes sense what I was
explaining here on this slide was that
if the focal point is too far off that
the light actually spreads out
and um that's why it you will not um
receive enough energy in the material so
um the exact position of the focal point
does doesn't have to be on the surface
it is in fact within the material but if
it it isn't um
specifically uh adjusted to that
material it could be so far off that uh
the process the actual engraving or
cutting will not work anymore so I hope
that cleared up the confusion uh about
this question yeah the next um question
is from a person who has no hex space in
her her his region or can you recommend
online service for laser
cutting uh no I cannot uh because I
don't actually have any experience
myself I with with online services uh
because I always use the laser cutter
that was locally available to me and
it's also a lot of fun you know figuring
out how to use a machine which of course
I haven't at all covered in this talk um
but yeah so basically if you have clean
files and you know what kind of
materials you are working with uh all of
the you know getting the adjustment
right is the job and the task of the
service that uh will be provided to you
use so at least that part is going to be
easier and uh should be should be no
problem for you so it's actually easier
to do that but of course it's a little
bit less fun but uh I suppose the the
major difference is quality and prices
there so
yeah there's one question from um IC can
you rem certain projects for beginners
to gain or get familiar with all of the
topics so not to start over
complicated yeah um yeah totally so I
had a lot of fun creating keychains
which I think you could see during the
talk because there were a lot of
keychains that I showed um like I said
in the talk I recommend starting with
acrylics instead of um wood because it
tends to be easier to work with because
there is less variation with the
material and then start with something
small like personalized keychains or
maybe something you could wear around
your neck uh like a necklace uh
something like that something small
something easy uh maybe find um find a
logo or like um like a let's say a shark
for instance right find a find an SVG
online or uh that you can modify and
edit and personalize and put your name
on it or uh just draw it yourself uh by
hand and then just simply put a red ring
around it which is your laser cutting um
you know
outline uh and and remember that you
need a hole for the actual key ring to
go into and then just you know figure
out the size by looking at your keychain
and and figuring out like okay so you
know this is the size the reason why I'm
recommending this is because it's a lot
of fun it's something personalized it's
something you can always carry around
with you um and also so it's small
enough to not uh require a lot of
expensive material so I would actually
recommend starting small with a small
project um and yeah something easy and
something 2D so like a keychain like I
said so a 3D box that you would like to
uh create of course requires uh unless
you're using the makeer case.com website
or something like that uh it requires a
little bit more thinking and things do
not go wrong and then if something does
go wrong uh you've wasted a lot of
expensive material and often enough if
you have a local hackspace they usually
have bits and pieces of acrylics or wood
lying around where you know a two or 3
cm diameter keychain or some small
object would easily fit on so usually uh
you know you don't you might not even
have to pay for the material or just
donate something in the you know
donation box of the Hax space if you're
not a you know a local or heavily
involved in that hack space or something
like that but uh yeah so something
something small something easy um that
doesn't you know that you could
basically uh put on on just leftover
material that you would find at your hex
space because if something goes wrong
simply grab another piece of material
and try
again and for the one um who are fearing
to go over comp licated how many project
you already wrecked in the beginning how
much did you curse for not getting the
result you wanted oh so many I mean I
mentioned a few in the talk like for
instance uh having too much detail and
cutting uh around too much detail so if
you engraving you can have a lot of fine
details in your files but if you have a
lot of information in tight Corners your
material will basically melt another
common mistake is is uh not setting the
focal point correctly which is why I
talked about that a lot as well because
it happens so easily if you if you have
a a a routine working with the machines
you you kind of forget that checklist in
your in your head right so you end up
being like Oh yeah I already know what
I'm doing and then you're like ah the
result is really off what is happening
here and then I realized oh uh I used 4
mm material before and now I'm working
with 3 mm mat material and I forgot to
adjust the distance the height the focal
point yeah these are these are the most
common mistakes I have wrecked so many
things and also mechanically uh
redesigned stuff so usually it's an
iteration process but all of the
information here in the talk is learning
by doing so this is what I learned by
making a lot of
mistakes so thank you
there
[Music]