Waffle joint for laser cutting

I have a gh model I've been seting up with a waffle structure

The object is a stool built with parts laser cut from 3mm mdf, however before doing the real size prototype I wanted test with a scale model 1/4 of the original size.

For this I have selected a thick type of paper for laser cutting.

Now, here's my question, since the precision of the machine is 1mm and even though the joints are set to follow material thicness (1mm) when the laser accyually cuts through the joint lines it will make a 2mm gap leaving it too loose for the assembly.

The definition is attached.

Thanks

Attachments:

waffle_thickness.gh, 41 KB

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Hannes Löschke on April 9, 2013 at 1:06pm

In CNC milling, you would calculate tool diameter and move tool paths accordingly. This is often neglected or ignored for laser cutting since you can live with a sub mm error in most cases.

If your laser actually burns 1mm cuts (which would be really bad) and you have a 1mm material, just cut one line and thats it. Otherwise, adjust the width of gap so the result will match. If you don't know the diameter of the laser, you will have to guess and experiment.

Permalink Reply by Gustavo Brod on April 10, 2013 at 1:21pm