Laser Cut Acrylic Lamp --- the Fairy Lamp

My name is Lily Gwynn. I am a second year Industrial Design major at Rochester Institute of Technology. I have some experience in Autodesk Fusion 360 and I learned Autodesk Inventor in high school. With this lamp project I learned how to constrain sketches, how to set parameters, how to make an arrangement, and how to send a dxf file from fusion to adobe illustrator in order to laser cut the file.

Supplies

Access to Fusion 360.

Access to a Laser cutter that can engrave and cut. Must be able to fit a 24 inch by 18 inch piece of material. The machine I used was an Epilog.

24 inch by 18 inch by 1/8th inch clear Acrylic or any other material that can be run on a laser engraver. (Other options are colored acrylic, mdf, and other types of wood.

Fairy lights or any other preferred lights.

Preferred length of a nylon rope.

Acrylic glue.

Optional supplies

UV resign and UV light.

Glitter, mica powder, and other embeds and pigments.

Soap and water to clean the acrylic.

Step 1: Setting Up a Fusion 360 File

To set up a fusion file, you need to make sure that your document is in the right units. I am using inches. Then you can set up parameters through the modify menu. By using parameters, you can change the dimensions of the file easily. Just make sure that you do not forget to type in the name of your correct parameter when entering dimensions. Make sure you save your file as you go and know where you are saving it. The next step is to make your first component in the assembly tab. Make sure when making a new component that your main assembly file is selected (what you titled your file).

Step 2: Making a Sketch

When making a new sketch make sure it is in the correct component. For the first side of my lamp I selected the XY plane. For my design I decided to make a jointed lamp. The sketch depicted above is two variations of stars that would be cut out of the acrylic. To constrain these stars I used the horizantal/vertical constraint, parallel constrain, equals constraint, tangent constraint, and dimension tool. I used construction lines on the main area of the sketch as well as for the 5 point stars. To make a 5 point star there are two methods. One method is to make a five point inscribed polygon (using a construction line) then use the line tool to make the star, trimming the excess lines. The second method is to make two lines with a 36 degree angle, then use the circular pattern tool, but make sure all the points connect. The four point "sparkle" stars are made using a center point and the center to center slot tool.

When done with your sketch click the finish sketch button. The next step is to extrude the piece to the parameter set for the material depth. Make sure the stars or whatever you sketched is extruding correctly (the stars being an absence of material). If your sketch is not extruding correctly it may be a problem with points not connecting in your sketch. You can use the coincident constraint or if that doesn't work zoom in and manually fix the points together.

The next step is to make more components.

Step 3: Other Sketches

Use the plane of the side of the material (as seen highlighted above) in order to make a new sketch. Make sure this sketch is in a separate component from the other sketch(s).

The other sketches that I did were cherry blossoms, butterfly wings, circles (with a flower wreath design that is engraved -- using illustrator), and an abstract geometric rose. Both the cherry blossom and butterfly wing sketches used the spline tool. Making the circles I used the center diameter circle. To make the abstract geometric rose, I used a 6 point inscribed polygon, the line tool, construction lines, and the circular pattern tool.

Reminder you can always edit a sketch through the history bar.

Step 4: Arranging Components

Once you finished all of your sketches (in different components) and extruded them making a similar design, a different lamp design, or possibly another project in itself in order to laser cut an arrangement is needed.

To make the arrangement you need to make a new component (make sure your main assembly is selected). In this component go to modify then select arrange. If you are unable to see the arrange button then you need to go into your preferences (in the design menu) and select "Enable arrange and simplify tools." Once you are able to select arrange the menu should pop up. First select all of the "objects" which are your different components (arrange will not work if you did not make separate components). Next select the plane you want to arrange your objects on (make sure the origin plane is showing). Then input the length and width of the material you are using.

The final step before making a DXF file is to project your sketches from your arranged component. To do this make a sketch in the same component as the arrangement. Then on your keyboard select fn and p which will bring up the projection menu and select all of the component's geometry.

Step 5: Making a DXF and Using Illustrator

To make a DXF file select the component of the arranged projected sketch. Right click the sketch to open up a menu and click save as DXF.

The next step is to open this DXF in Illustrator. Change the art board to the size of your material (example: 24 inches by 18 inches); which fits in the laser cutter/engraver. Make sure all lines that are to be cut are the exact color profile which your laser engraver uses (Epilog being red -- FF0000). All lines that are to be cut need to be a vector line which is the laser size (The epilog laser being 0.001 inches or 0.072 pts).

Make sure there are no extra lines in your file and that they are all joined together.

You can add an engrave (epilog color preset being Black -- 000000), which is not constrained to a certain size. Make sure each design is expanded and merged.

Step 6: Cutting, Resin, and Assembly

To cut the lamp with the laser engraver/cutter send the illustrator file into the machines program and run it.

An optional addition to further customize the lamp is to add UV or Epoxy resin into the cut outs of the lamp. Be creative and practice the right ventilation.

To assemble the lamp you can use acrylic glue or resin. Place lighting on the inside before fully assembling. If it is fairy lights make sure the control switch is not trapped inside the lamp.

To make a hanging lamp. Leave two opposing ends alone (do not glue to form a complete box). Tie knots on the ends of the nylon rope and secure by placing one of the opposing ends on. Then place the lights in the box, leaving the switch outside of the lamp. Also put the other end of rope into the box and place on the "lid."

You now have a fully assembled lamp. Above is my final design.