Aligning workpiece in laser

Discussion
1

I am currently trying to make some endpieces for some electronic bagpipes I’ve been working on. This starts with a sheet of acrylic, which is then milled to give outline of 25 endcaps, then laser etched and cut. However, using the metal mesh sheet as a base for good allignment on laser is proving difficult - and my tolerance is quite tight (±0.2mm would be good). What generally happens is I put a sheet in top left corner, with a spacer to hold the top corner of sheet at 0,0, then the first cut or two goes ok but then the weight of the sheet changes as bits fall off and it shifts by 0.5mm or so - enough to ruin the rest as they are slightly misaligned. This is amplified as the metal mesh rises slightly at the edges.

Does anyone have ideas how to do this process better?

Images of the sheet design after milling and after lasering are below - thanks!

20171116_170756.jpg3024×4032 3.37 MB
20171116_171534.jpg3024×4032 4.66 MB

2

I have a way but it’s hard to explain on here.

You going to the space tonight?

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3

Unfortunately was not - but if you are about any other time I can drop in, sounds great!

4

Tomorrow?

5

you could rest the sheet on engineering parallels?

Please don’t etch them though…probably won’t do much but you never know, they are precision ground would be nice to keep them that way.

6

No please don’t do this… they are metal tools and not to be used on the laser cutter

7

Do you mean tomorrow as in Monday? Bit puzzled as you posted this very early today! But aye I am in Monday daytime, does your idea involve cutting reference holes or is it something snazzy in software?

8

Sorry. I have been suffering from an illness at home. So I’m not making much sense.

9

No worries - hope you feel better soon.

10

Can you not just cut your own spacers, or use a sacrificial material to space it off the sold bed to prevent back marking.

11

Yeah this was where I was going. Remove the honey comb bed and put small blocks of wood under the work that are cut to the same height.

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