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- Hacker News
- Calculating kerf is the worst. :(by zacharycohn
- Can you not just cut a 1" square, measure it accurately then use that as the kerf correction (option to add in software like Lightburn).by giarc
- > overlapping circles and rectangles
Just hull() two circles. It's a cheap operation in 2D.
- > To add a little pizzazz, I constructed a cat’s head silhouette from an ellipse and two triangles, then randomly scattered them
Ooh! A scattering that avoids overlapping punching might benefit from another recent item on Poisson Disk Scattering [0]... Although on a boringly-practical level, I guess rejection sampling would make more sense for this need.
by Terr_ - I found that Figma is really good for designing SVG laser cuttable designs. Had to fix a few things with exports, units etc. but solid. Here's a little plugin I built if it's helpful:
- Before you go deep on OpenSCAD, consider JSCAD: https://jscad.app/
Roughly similar capabilities, but you get to use javascript or typescript instead of the linguistic abomination that is OpenSCAD.
by kennywinker - I'm actually rather fond of OpenSCAD --- it has the advantage of being completely safe in terms of security/execution, so no worries about downloading a random .scad file and wondering what it might do.
If one wants a full-fledge programming language for this, I found Python a lot more comfortable:
by WillAdams - Can anyone recommend a home CO2 or high-wattage diode laser cutter which can cut 3-4mm ply? We run an Epilog machine at my local makerspace, but I wonder if consumer machines have gotten reasonably good recently?by thomascountz
- My 50W Omtech Polar Plus (since discontinued) can do 3mm in one pass and 6mm in two passes (or one pass near max power but I prefer two for reduced charring and to extend the lifecycle of the laser).
Basically any 50W Chinese laser should get you what you want. But at that price point you can't adjust the mirrors, no red dot to guide cuts, poor camera calibration etc. It's worlds away from what I expect you get with an Epilog.
by in_cahoots - I've had great success designing durable objects using the sheet metal modeler in OnShape[0] and have them fabricated with SendCutSend[1]
[0]www.onshape.com [1]www.sendcutsend.com
by seemaze - I've been using onshape for 3d printing and it never occurred to me that this kind of thing was a possibility. My mind is being blown, thank you for this comment!by kowbell
- There is a FreeCAD workbench for this, and it seems to have been restarted recently:
https://github.com/execuc/LCInterlocking
Like some of the other older pre-TNP-mitigation plugins it's possible its interaction with those mitigations is quite limited, though my limited understanding is some work has gone into extending the mitigations into objects generated by the Python API in the next version of FreeCAD (26.3 — CalVer now).
by dofm - For more on this in spades see boxes.py
https://boxes.hackerspace-bamberg.de/
For my part, I've been working the CNC router angle, so have a much larger kerf to cope with (and the added advantage of controllable partial depth and no char):
https://community.carbide3d.com/t/full-blind-box-joints-in-c...
by WillAdams - I really love boxes.py, and have contributed several designs. The flexbook, shadowbox, coinbanksafe, and frameloom are all mine :)
I'm really proud of the loom.
https://boxes.hackerspace-bamberg.de/FlexBook
https://boxes.hackerspace-bamberg.de/Shadowbox
https://boxes.hackerspace-bamberg.de/CoinBankSafe
https://boxes.hackerspace-bamberg.de/FrameLoom
Recently I've been on a kick making bracelets with that frame loom. The rotating heddle bar makes it super quick to warp up. I've written about how to go from woven rectangle to bracelet here:
by chias