Fume hood cover with build-in spice shelves

As a winter task, I replaced my old fume hood with a new one. The new one was bought half a year ago - and was supposed to go into a kitchen system.

Hence, I had to design a cover!

Here are the pictures of the result: https://goo.gl/mifmng
Let me know if anyone is interested in the files.

The build was cut in 6mm birch plywood. The cut was made with 2.2 mA per mm per second in one go.
The cut pieces were gently sanded (grit 320p) at the cut edges to reduce colouring. It was assembled with glue only on the front piece - the rest clicks together.
It was painted three times with standard half bright paint.

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How much power is your current laser rated at that it cuts 6mm birch in one shot (just curious). Also, do you have a picture of what this is coveringā€¦ Looks fantastic by the wayā€¦ very niceā€¦

Tony

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I did not take a ā€œbeforeā€ picture - but it is something like this: http://www.silverline.com/distributors/admin/PICS/webfiles/1140-1150-1151-1152_Skitse_16372.jpg
(It might be exactly like this).

As for power - I ran it at around 33mAmps with a speed of 15 mm/sec. This was on the safe side - could have gone a bit faster, I think. Iā€™d just hate having to run it twice OR having to go over the cuts with some not cut all the way through.

I used CHEAP plywood. It warbled a bit, even thoā€™ I had it laying flat for a couple of days. Plywood that warbles are a bit of a pain to cut, since cutting 60 cm (the longest of the sides) would mean that the focus would shift at least 25% over the cut. NOT ideal. Butā€¦ Cheap. :wink:

I ran it at 33mAmps - this was with a constant beam, soā€¦ 15.000 volts? About 50 true watts (might need to say 60 or even 80 watts on the tube).

Peter

And thanks. :wink:

Cool idea! Hoods are usually such a waste of spaceā€“nice innovation.

What kind of laser were you using? Iā€™ve got a K40 Iā€™m using as my training machine until I get my GF and I donā€™t push it past about 12mA (but I run the cuts at 20-35mm/sec to reduce the smoking).

That was on an 80-watt laser. On your K40 I wouldnā€™t mind running that at up to 25mA. I have one of those and I basically run it at 30mA all the time. This WILL wear down the tube 10-20x as fast as normal use - but thatā€™s still 100ā€™ of hours. And the tube it came with was fairly lousy, so I am using it as an excuse to purchase and install a better one eventually.

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Thatā€™s not a bad way of looking at it. Iā€™ve generally kept it at under 20ma but your approach is similar to how Iā€™d think of a new laser printer - you know the ones that come with half-filled toner cartridges; cheap to buy in and you know youā€™ll need to replace the starter cartridges early. Treating the tube in the K40 as a ā€œstarterā€ tube isnā€™t a bad approach. Can then upgrade to a really good one when itā€™s toasted.

I may wait until the GF comes in before I start really ratcheting it up though. That way Iā€™ll have my backup ready.

I donā€™t think you will be using your K40 after you get your GFā€¦ :stuck_out_tongue:

Can always use a second one while the GF is working on a project. I have enough stuff I want to do that keeping two busy wonā€™t be a problemšŸ˜ƒ

Really?
Most of my work only takes minutes, if not seconds.
Lasers areā€¦ Fast.
The only exception is large area engravings, especially with multiple passes.

I use more time (much more) preparing the drawings and orienting the materials in the machine. :wink:

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Well, it wonā€™t help much with the drawing/design process but the GlowForge with definitely help out cutting down the orientation of the materials. :slight_smile:

Most of mine takes a half hour or more. The bigger bed laser I use is limited to 750mm/s engrave and I do some apparently complex stuff. Lots of living hinge, maps and graphic work. Usually vector based but sometimes raster added in.

My experience has been that it takes dramatically less time to design on a Glowforge because the iteration cycle is fast - you can print something halfbaked and try it out, instead of having to review the design a dozen time for perfection before committing it to material. An unexpected side effect of the print process taking only a few minutes.

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Wellā€¦it wonā€™t help much in the drawing up of designsā€¦ Iā€™m pretty sure. @dan might have another correction and announcement of AI integration to support 3-D spacial recognition ala Jarvis in Iron Man. O.o

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