I created a puzzle that fits inside an altoid container. The puzzle contains 63 pieces and has the design of a fish drawn in autocad on its face.

Step 1: Materials

What you will need:

- laser cutter
- 3mm Baltic Birch Plywood
- Altoids Container

Step 2: Files and Laser Printing

The Drawing files are attached to the instructable, be sure to save the files in DXF format.

I imported them into Correll Draw and made the Green lines cut through the wood with a power of 100% and a speed of 2. The Red and White lines just burn at a power of 100% and speed of 30. Be sure to laser the picture into the wood before it is cut into the puzzle. I used a universal systems CO2 laser. Other types of lasers may have different levels of speed and power so make sure you adjust accordingly.

Step 3: My Process

I was online looking for ideas to do a school project and I came across a website that had cad drawings of a variety of objects. An extremely detailed drawing of a fish especially intrigued me. I had the idea to make a puzzle with the fish on its face that would fit inside an altoid mint container. First I had to find a picture of a puzzle and convert it to an auto cad file. For this I used IMG2CAD which I found online for free. Next I changed the color of the fish so it would be different from the puzzle outline because I knew I would need to cut them at different speeds. My first attempt at cutting the puzzle was good but it still had some major flaws. Certain lines in the design of the fish were overlapping causing the laser to cut through in various places on the fish. The puzzle was also too large to fit inside the altoid container. I found the volume of the puzzle and the volume of the container and figured out the ratio i needed to scale the puzzle down to. After these revisions I reprinted the puzzle and this time there were no overlapping lines but the puzzle was just a bit too larger for the container.I forgot the account for the pieces not beng together inside the container. I reprinted at a smaller size and it was a success.

The fish design can be found at: http://autocad-drawing.com/Animals/Animal-fish-autocad-drawing-dwg-.html

Step 4: Troubleshooting

The first puzzle i printed was, as you can see, extremely too large to fit into the altoid container. i figured out the volume of the container and the puzzle so i could scale the puzzle down. Once it was scaled down enough, it fit within the container.