anyone have any good suggestions for starting settings to create a living hinge in 1/4" birch? basically i want to play around with making a treasure chest type box.
We’d need to know which laser to suggest settings for 0.25" baltic birch.
That said, if you’re playing around then why not try different hinges and learn what’s best for your treasure chest? There are a set of living hinge patterns at Obrary that you could try out. Also, there’s an entire section on Boxes with Flex at Boxes.py.
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i thought i included that. id be using dorian
Sorry, I see now that it was in the title of the post.
As actual setting change depending on conditions, making test cuts is a good rule to start with. Try 25 mm/s and 100% and inspect the results. If it’s too little and it doesn’t cut through then slow the speed; if it’s too much and you have char then speed it up.
Once you dial it in you’ll have your answer.
While Dorian can make these cuts, you will should notably better results in a fraction of the time on Tarkin.
1/4" BB, I’d say 80-100 mm/s 100% max power 0% min power single pass
Dorian would take approx 3x the runtime and more likely to have some burning extending away from the cut zone, which could be a problem for the living hinge as the lines are close together so that toasty margin is going to start to meet up with the margin for the neighboring line, compromising more the of the structure of the hinge.
thanks. I just booked time on tarkin for tomorrow to practice