Week3: Laser cutter — Night light

This is my first time doing the laser cutting. I was no idea what to do at first, and then I thought to make something that can hang on in my room to decorate my new apartment. So, I try to build the wind chime. After the design, however, I change my mind to make the night light because I want to combine my Physical Computing assignment with it. I want to put the LED inside the laser cutter acrylic.

This is the idea of making a wind chime but change to night light in the end.

I used cardboard to test my template works or not.

In the beginning, I designed the face of the box above, but I want to make my box in square and repeatable. Therefore, I redesign the shape.

Four sides are in the same shape

After that, I downloaded the free lace pattern vectors on the Vecteezy and put the pattern on the surface.

Lace Pattern Vectors by Vecteezy

Test the pattern on the cardboard

I went to the Makerspace to use their laser cutter, which is 75 watt due to the machine in ITP was full. The setting is 8S /100P /100F, and I cut twice to cut through the acrylic.

First laser cutting using white acrylic

After testing on the acrylic, I found the problem that one of my patterns didn’t draw right in illustration and the tenon was too loose.

After fixing everything, I used the black acrylic that I was going to use in the end for the night light.

Using the little screwer to poke the pieces out

I did two of the night light, one is cutting in the Makerspace, and the other is in ITP. The ITP laser cutter is 60watt, which is different from the Makerspace’s. I used the suggested setting 20S/100P/5000F to cut the acrylic, but it didn’t cut through the acrylic after I did it twice like the 75watt. So I adjust the setting to 15S/100P/5000F.

I used the pliers to put the gold jump rings on my night light.

Then I used iron wire to hang my night light in the air.