HWK F4: Laser Cutting - A Curious Cat

Slicing a complex object to laser cut and giving up so cutting a cat instead.

Frankly, this assignment was during on of the most inconvenient times in my life. My home country has been going through a full-scale invasion, and my family, friends, and community that I relate to were significantly impacted.

Since this was my first time laser printing, I decide to print some simple: A PAGODA WITH COMPLEX CURVES. But then I gave up on slicing that and switched to something simple: A CURIOUS CAT.

The process was very simple, and I will briefly document it below. I will utilize laser printing to print some beautiful Ukrainian ornaments to giveaway as part of a fundraiser for Ukraine.

Slicing

Slicer for Fusion 360 workspace displaying a pagoda model and a sliced model with red-colored slices. — The pagoda design that I got from Thingiverse was impossible to slice with minimal resolution that would make it look like a pagoda. Due to small details, sliced layers were incomplete or detached. I noticed this because slices were colored red. I tinkered with different settings and gave up since nothing worked for this model.

Left: image of a final laser cut cat model, Right: image of sliced model — Credit to author on Thingiverse who shared a sliced file for cat design so I could skip slicing step.

Pre-cutting

left images shows sliced objects on Adobe Illustrator workspace while right image is on laser cut control software — Left: sliced model file displayed on Adobe Illustrator tool where I will change color of lines that I want to be cut through during cutting process. Right: laser cut control workspace with objects to cut outlined in thin red lines.

Laser Cutter go brrrrr.

Left: image of back side of the wood plate with many lines not being cut through; right: front side of the plate with well cut lines — Left: back side of the wood plate showing that the laser did not cut fully through the plate. Right: front side of the plate shows well cut lines with limited burn.

There was an issue with the laser not cutting through my wood plate. First, the plate was slightly curved, so some parts were more elevated than others, which explains why one regions was cut through while the other didn't. I had increase depth setting to cut through the plate and rerun laser cutted twice, but it was at the cost of appearance since the front surface began burning. I heard the laser cutter was recently fixed, but I think there is still an issue with elevation calibration.

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End result

Curious cat with small piece of face pelled — While removing the parts, a part of cat's face peeled off (oh nooo!). Well, it was a very cheap wood plate (1$), so I should have expected it to peel off easily. Good to know!

Final model of laser cut curious cat — A nice angle of the curious cat.

A More Meaningful Application

Folk art of Ukraine on Ukrainian mapp — I will try to find and vectorize open sourced designs and symbols of Ukrainian folk art and laser cut it to giveaway for donations!

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Other projects:

HWK F6: Molding and Casting a Fruit Bowl

HWK F5: Arduino - Meat Spoilage Detector

HWK F3: 3D printing - Printing a fluffle

HWK F4: Laser Cutting - A Curious Cat

HWK F2: CAD - Designing a Valentine's Day Gift

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