Introduction: Slicing a Onshape Model for Lasercutting

By http://zurich.fablab.ch/
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In this example, Pepitooo, an estimated member of the FabLab Zürich, did a holder for his drill bits.

He bought in china some cheap drill bits, but they came without any case. His goal will be to do a basic holder for drill bits to be easy accessible and well organized on his workbench.

What do you need ?

  • Laser Cutter
  • Material (3mm MDF)
  • Onshape account
  • Kiri:Moto plugin
  • QCAD (Optional)
  • Time

Step 1: Designing the 3D Object

I suggest you to follow an onshape tutorial if you don't know how to do it. It's quite simple and easy to use.

https://www.onshape.com/videos/topic/tutorials

  • You start to design a 2D Sketch
  • You extrude the Top Part with the holes (As my material is 3mm, I used a multiplier of 3, here 5*3, you can use arithmetic formula directly in onshape.)
  • Extrude bottom part without the holes
  • Boolean union of the 2 extruded parts

Attachments

Step 2: Open the Kiri:Moto Plugin for Onshape and IMport Your Object

Kiri:Moto is a mighty plugin for Onshape, which can be found in the App Store of Onshape. If you don't have it, you can go and Download it. For that you go to App Store and search "Kiri".

This Plugin can be used for Slicing (Lasercutting) or even for CAM (Milling) and 3D Printing. For more Information go to https://www.onshape.com/cad-blog/partner-spotlight-kirimoto

After that, you can Import your Object in the "Current Workspace" Tab.

Step 3: Slice Your Object With the Plugin

Select the "Laser Cutting" mode. Then on the right side of the Screen, you have a few parameter to adjust to your material. As mentioned in the Intro, I had a 3mm MDF. In this case you change the height to the thickness of your material. So in my case, I change the Layer Hight to 3 (Remember my 3*5 Formula?)

Once set up, you just click on Export on the left side and save your file. Depending with which CAD-Tool you would like to use after, you may choose a different file-format for downloading. In this case I used "DXF".

Step 4: Setting Up Line Thickness for Laser Cutting

Editing with QCAD:

With QCAD, it will add some mark to identify each bits. The layer 0 in this case is for cutting, and layer 1 is the one for marking.
Layer 0 (Cutting) must have a line width of 0 mm, otherwise our Laser Cutter will ignore it.

Depending on the Laser Cutter you have, you change the settings to your like. As you see in the second picture, I re-organized my Layer-Cut_Layer to fit to my raw material.

Step 5: Laser Cutting

Choose the right setting for your Laser Cutter.

Tipp: If you have a spare part of the same material or you know which part will not be cut with the laser, use it to verify your settings. Depending on the laser, and how new the laser tube is, the same setting that worked once, is not the same anymore.

Step 6: Assembly

Now you just need to glue the parts together and let them dry. You can use this method to organize more then just drill bits. Maybe some order in the silverware drawer of the Kitchen? You can use this method for that too. Have fun and let us know if you made something similar.