Laptop Stand

What I did

For this project, we were asked to build a laptop stand.

 

What I used

Materials: 0.25 inch birch ply

Tools: Fusion 360, Adobe Illustrator, laser cutter, pencil, steel square, band saw, ear plugs, safety glasses, box cutter,

 

How I did it

I started by designing a laptop stand in Fusion 360. The instructions for the stand can be found here. Then I exported the top, one side, and one support to dxf files, opened them then in illustrator.

 

Next, I placed the files on the same artboard (sized the same as the bed of the laser cutter), duplicated the side and support, changed the lines to red (R: 255, G: 0, B: 0) and made the line weight 0.01px.

 

Next I cut down a piece of 0.25 inch thick birch ply using a band saw so it would fit the bed of the laser cutter. I made sure to wear safety glasses and earplugs during this process.

 

Then I used the laser cutter to cut the illustrator file into the birch ply. I had the laser cutter go through two passes at 60% power and 1.5% speed, and once again at 50% power and 1.5% speed because it had not cut all the way through after the first two passes.

 

Next I popped the pieces out of the birch ply board.

 

Some pieces were not cut all the way through so I used a box cutter to cut the rest of the way through.

 

I then tried to assemble the laptop stand, however I discovered that the pieces didn’t fit correctly. After examining the pieces, I realized that the top piece had become altered in illustrator when I dragged it, because the holes were not selected.

 

I then re-cut the top from a piece of birch ply that had an aborted cut etched into it, as I could just flip the piece over. In the image below, you can see how the holes in the top are not evenly aligned in the first top piece.

 

I then assembled the laptop stand and tried it out.

 

What I learned

First off, I learned that testing is really important before you make something. Before cutting the pieces for my stand, I tested the settings for the laser cutter by trying different combinations of power, speed, and number of passes. During these tests, I cut out ovals. However, I also learned that tests can’t always predict the results you’ll get.  I believed that I had found the perfect settings, but when I cut the pieces, not all of them were cut all the way through, so I had to pass through them one more times. It seems like smaller pieces like the ovals I tested cut a little better than larger pieces, but I’m not sure why.

Additionally, I learned that sometimes you just have to start over. I was really frustrated that my top piece didn’t fit correctly, and I briefly considered filing down part of it a little, so I could jam it together, but I knew it wouldn’t be quite right. At that point, I wasn’t even sure what exactly the problem was, and which piece was wrong. Additionally, the process had taken longer than I expected, and I was starving, so I wanted to be done. However, I ultimately accepted that I had to go back and laser cut again, so I examined the dxf files in Illustrator and realized where I had gone wrong. After I re-cut the top piece and it fit perfectly, I definitely felt like I made the right choice by making the laptop stand properly.