Multi pass cuts

Can multiple passes be made during a cut? I know you can cut 1/2" wood by flipping the board and doing a second cut - but could you also do this with multiple passes? Which brings up the next question - how many passes to get through 1/4" plywood/mdf/acrylic?

Yes, and a really amazing feature is that you can lower the focus with each pass, so it’s way more effective than traditional “focus at the top/middle and hope for the best” approach. Plywood and MDF vary so much from batch to batch it’s impossible to say; some of it’s butter and some of it’s like cement. We’ll offer batches of those materials that Just Work, but if you’re buying from a store, you’ll need to profile them yourself. You can definitely do 1/4" acrylic in a single pass, as we did that yesterday at makerfaire with our old tube!

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so could you cut a 1" piece of material doing multipass single side for the first 1/2" (using the changing focal length) then flip over for other 1/2? (granted at that point a CNC is probably a better choose, just curious.

(I know you only have a 1/2" focal distance right?)

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That is correct, and very clever. Hm…

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I understand now what that “Hm” means, so be sure and tell us when one of you successfully tries this with a 1" piece of material.

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I came across this beauty of instructable

I hope you get that in your software! I’ve never tried it before, but it would be awesome if it can be done.

R.

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I hadn’t seen that! We have software control over focus so theoretically we can do things like this automatically. Will be fun to experiment with.