Jon's Imaginarium – Laser-Cut Enclosures The Easy Way

[Visitor]

From Hack-A-Day, an easy way to design laser-cut enclosures of many shapes and styles.

Boxes.py Has Your Lasercut Box Needs Covered

I needed something to test out a low-power laser cutter, and thought that some small cardboard boxes would fit the bill nicely, so off I went to scour the Interwebs for a quick-and-dirty finger-joi…

hackaday.com

Boxes.py will generate the needed files for many styles of boxes, including those with flexible panels. Just enter the needed parameters and you'll get the files for a laser cutter. One of the interesting options are enclosures for 19" racks. An acrylic alternative to a commercial enclosure is nice for prototyping and checking dimensions before committing to machining.

If you don't have a laser-cutter, no problem. Many hacker spaces will cut laser projects for you, and commercial services are getting common.

 

[Pommie]

I'm hoping to get the school's (my) laser cutter fixed shortly so this site could come in very useful.

Thanks,

Mike.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

I'm hoping to get the school's (my) laser cutter fixed shortly so this site could come in very useful.

Presumably you're aware of the limitations on materials you can cut?.

I went to see a guy with one the other year (he also had some nice large CNC milling machines), and I was disappointed to find that many plastics can't be cut In particular, and what we were interested in, was ABS - which burns rather than cuts, and the fumes ruin the optics.

Funnily enough, he used to have a unit (doing software) on the same industrial park we're on, but now works from his old farmhouse up a track in the fields.

 

[Pommie]

The school one is 50W and will cut 3mm acrylic and 6mm wood. It installs as a printer so can be used with any software. Send it vector graphics, it cuts, bitmaps get etched (lower power raster movement). It got ruined (optics fogged) one day when a supply teacher was convinced that the kids knew how to use it, they used it without exstractor or compressor running and coated all the mirrors with tar.

Mike.

 

[Visitor]

One point to keep in mind – if you're paying someone for laser time, all the cuts required by a "living hinge" could get expensive.

 

[Visitor]

Safe Materials for Laser Cutting