I love our Glowforge, and seeing the cool and creative stuff that people are posting is a little intimidating. The things I make are more utilitarian. I bought some hook up wire in three different gauges for my various electronics projects. It came in a cardboard box that was pretty ‘meh’. I tried a couple different ways of storing it, and the boxes quickly got destroyed. So it started to look like this in my toolbox.
I’ve reworked the top cover so the holes are more in line radially as the wire comes off, and engraved the wire gauge as well. I’ll post a picture once I get a chance to cut them.
Glen
(Hoping that I uploaded the pictures correctly.)
I use AutoCAD at my dayjob, so most of my designs are done in AutoCAD. Because of this, I have the ability to use blocks, predefined drawings that simply get inserted into the current design. one of them is the captive 3mm nut and bolt. The insertion point is the center of the bolt shaft (the little blue dot below), which means I can simply drop them in where I need them.
The hex nut is a press fit, and the bolt sort of self threads in its cavity, so they are fairly secure.
I’ve also found that a dustbuster type vacuum is really helpful for removing all the little cut out holes and other bits and bobs that get left behind from a cut, rather than having to go though afterwards and remove them by hand.
I did Autocad from 1988 before it was even 3d . so many automated bits are possible, and I blew out those with 300 odd Lisp assists many now built in. A favorite that few folk use is that the block definition is only the name in the object and you can change it to any other name and as long as the insertion points are congruent it just changes from one thing to the next. so if you have a block B that contains 2 block As you can change A to B and explode it and have 2 As and change those etc.
The extra lines on this are because I had to check my alignment, our camera is off and I’m waiting on some draft board to run the calibration. In the OP, you may be able to see that some of the box joints on the un-assembled material are short because I misjudged the offset and put my design too close to the edge of the blank.
I’d be happy to upload the design if it would be helpful for others. Do I put it in this thread or does it have to go in the Free Laser Design forum? My toolpath is CAD - PDF - Glowforge, is PDF acceptable?
You can do it in either place, but since you’re generous enough to share, if you load it in the Free Files section more people who want it will probably see it.
I’ll start with it here, and put a more concise post over in free laser designs.
This version does not have the text in it, I figure most anyone with a GF should be able to put their own custom text in place.
Just be sure when assembling to get the holes on the sides to the top, and insert the center ‘axel’ before gluing. I kind of went belt and suspenders to keep the stoo’pit spools from coming out. It’s a tight fit in 3mm baltic birch, but it’s not like they get reloaded frequently.