Someone a while back mentioned using thicker acrylic, and engraving the tab portion down so that it fit the slot.
The bases I got from China also have a slot-width that is somewhere between the 3mm and the 6mm acrylic that I have.
You donât need drivers - you can do the design in a real design tool (Corel, Illustrator, etc.), save it out as an SVG or PDF, and drop that file into the GFUI, and cut/score/engrave all in one file, and they align with each other perfectly. The only trick is to make cuts and scores different colors, so you can configure them separately.
The âtraceâ using the lid camera is limited. Itâs very easy, and awesome for simple things, like giving a kid a marker and having him draw something on paper to scan and cut/engrave. But for anything ârealâ I would use a real scanner, or take a photograph with a higher quality camera (even a camera phone), and convert to line art using the tools in Illustrator/Inkscape, which give far more control over whatâs going on.
This works great - perfect fit in those bases (I bought I believe the same ones with remote and color changing).
For your 1/4" (thick proofgrade) acrylic, engrave each side of the tab at - Full/905/340 for a perfectly centered, very snug fit in that base.
Doesnât that affect the light transmission?
Edit: After thinking it through, I suppose it wouldnât, huh. Because youâd only be making it the depth of the slot itself. Yeah?
No, the tab is centered directly over the LEDâs, and the light enters the bottom of the tab, not the engraved sides. I did try a variation and âpolishedâ the engrave on the sides with acrylic solvent, but saw zero difference.
It is important to be sure the bottom edge of the tab is a laser cut so it is âflame polishedâ for the best light transmission.
I cut out a piece of scrap and slip it into the slots in the various LED bases I use. Then I trace the outline of the slot (some of the ones I use are wavy) and that gives me something I can then scan and drop into Corel (or your favorite drawing program) to size the slot tab to be so it fits just right vertically.
For the thickness issue, @PrintToLaser is correct - you can use thick (1/4") acrylic and then engrave the tab to thin it down appropriately. The tracing done to get the right tab size/shape also provides the shape for the engrave object. Unlike him though, I only engrave the back side of the tab as I donât do a lot of these that are just rectilinear - most of mine end up with various bits and pieces of the design escaping the sides so they wonât flip over in place and that just adds complexity to the dual-sided engrave. The rear side engrave works fine and thereâs no real benefit of having a bit of an overhang on the slot on both front & back.
In fact, this was just the use case that 2 years ago I encountered and was the first time I said to myself âif I had my GF I could do this using the trace functionâ. Itâs not correct because you canât take that trace out of the GFUI. But it did get me thinking about scanning and cutting/engraving.
You did well for first acrylic. I use the bases for Amazon also but make boxes to cover the black plastic .
I etched the back side of the Dollar Store Candle Holders/Mirrors and dropped them into the LED light slot. It looks best in a darker room, but not bad for a buck. I havenât loaded any acrylic yet.
Pics?
Great idea - simple, but Iâm sure it really classes the joint up
Thank you for sharing all of your tips and tricks on this!
Through the loooooong wait for the , Iâve been very impressed by the community that has been encouraged and has thrived on this forum. People are so helpful and caring. I havenât seen much in the way of what my fiancĂ© calls âdrip-feeding of secretsâ (from his days playing Atari with his older brothers).
Sorry if this is too gushy, but I truly think the generosity of all of you experienced designers and laserers (?!), building tutorials and patiently answering questions, is what is going to make these tools useful for a lot of us⊠rather than massive multi-thousand dollar paperweights of regret.
Yeah, the people make this place special. I knew absolutely nothing about lasers, CNC and only a little about design software, but I havenât needed to go anywhere else to learn or get help understanding.
It was an excruciating wait, but it is amazing how fast the memory of that vanished.
Yeah, it can be really frustrating. There are ways to cleverly add to the original after the fact, but it would be great if trace was as accurate as we want it to be