Prototyping in felt and EVA foam

Beyond the Manual
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So I’m in the midst of a babyboom. All my friends are either pregnant or just delivered one. So kids names are very hot right now. I want to gift my friends something original made on my Gforge.

I design all my files in illustrator (an old copy, CS6) and I wanted to experiment with other materials like felt and EVA foam. I went out to a craftstore the next town over and bought some foam, cardstock, felt. All in different thicknesses.

For this design I wanted to use plywood, EVA foam and felt to give the design more depth than to just use one single material. Now I know how plywood behaves but I had not yet used felt or EVAfoam on a lasercutter before. Searching the forum I found some good starter settings and off I went.

I have 2 thicknesses of felt. The dark grey is 3mm thick and the other felt <1mm. The thin felt cut like a charm but they do get charred edges. Especially visible on the white. Scoring the foam is dangerous for it will almost burn through. But I needed to know where to place certain pieces.

The thick felt was just as easy to cut but all the small details melted away. This is very apparent in the letters.

the 2.15mm EVA foam cuts like butter too. Very nice crisp edges. But scoring leaves inconsistent burn marks (corners and such)

I’m going to have to figure out another way to cut the thick felt. Maybe multiple passes or use a different material.

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Your best bet here might be to slow down to around 125 and find an appropriate power to match.

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Image could not be loaded :sob:

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Scoring at 1 power and 500 speed is the fastest and lowest I can go. Still charring.

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Gotcha. Maybe try defocusing quite a bit. It will thicken the score lines but distribute the power over a wider area which may result in less overburn at the big direction changes.

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I was reading the microscale plant topic and I’m going to try and change the score to engrave to get less power.

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Also to consider: play with the design to avoid having sharp corners. Either round them if appropriate or do that curlicue thing

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Same for me. Can’t see a thing!

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Staff, could you please close this topic. I started a new one in ‘beyond the manual’ with better pics and more of a write up.