Universal PLS6.75
The PLS6.75 is a free-standing platform with a material processing envelope of 32″ x 18″ x 8.5″ or 4,896 in³ (813 x 457 x 216 mm or 80,253 cm³). The single laser platform supports either one 10.6µm CO2 laser (10 to 75 watts) or one 9.3µm CO2 laser (30, 50, or 75 watts).
Scroll down for material and dimensions in an example of finger joint assembly.
A simple finger joint between two or more pieces
This example is a spacer for a clock hanging in the lab, with joints similar to that in the images here. This type of joint can help you make boxes that will be more sturdy and require less glue (or none, as in the images).
Materials and dimensions:
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- McMaster cast acrylic, p/n 8560K257
- Fingers as-drawn: 0.244″ wide x 0.1235″ deep
- Slots as-drawn: 0.228″ long x 0.110″ wide
- These as-drawn dimensions account for both the thickness of the material used that day and the kerf (~ 16 mil) of our specific PLS6.75 laser cutter (as calibrated 2023.05). Better choices might have had the kerf evenly accounted for on both finger width and slot length.
- You can download this little-stand-off and load it into Illustrator or Corel to try for yourself!
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Handy Box-maker front-ends
This can be annoying to do by hand. Neverfear, there are programs that will take your dimensions and generate the pattern files to cut out box pieces on a laser cutter, accounting for kerf and tabs. Here are some favorites, plus a review article covering many of them.
- Boxes.py
- Makercase
- MakeABox
- Maker design lab covering multiple tools
- Instructables’ “The Ultimate Guide to Laser-cut Box Generators” also covering multiples tools, both front-end and scripting tools
At the tool
Cue cards for quick reference.
