Short guide to the use of laser cutting machines/Laboratory/Laser cutting fabric parts for a USB holder

This laboratory will use the sewing Laboratory for making an USB carrier, will use its design and measures. Short introduction to the use of sewing machines/Sewing labs/USB Carrier Preparing the file The file for this usb holder can be downloaded form wikimedia as svg file: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:USB_Holder.svg, and then added to this wikibook. The instructions to created and modify the file, explains how to design or draw a sewing pattern in real measure size using illustrator and or Inkscape software. The instructions are the following, this design was draw with inkscape (free software) 1.- Open inkscape, create a new file and Change the measure to inches Rear fabric 2.- Create a square with one line, the click in three dots and final with clic in initial dot. Or create a square. 3.- Choose the dot editor (node tool): clic in one dot, then the other inferior or superior dot use same x number: Point X coordinate Y coordinate Location Description 1st dot 0.5 5 Bottom left Starting point 2nd dot 0.5 1 Upper left 4 inches above the first dot 3rd dot 8 1 Upper right 4 inches above the fourth dot 4th dot 8 5 Bottom right Completes the rectangle Creation of 3 lines (To make 3 dividers for the 4 memory sticks). Frontal fabric 1.- For the frontal fabric, part just copy the whole square and change four corners Point X coordinate Y coordinate Location Description 1st dot 0.5 10 Bottom left Starting point 2nd dot 0.5 7 Upper left 3 inches above the lower left dot 3rd dot 8 7 Upper right 3 inches above the lower right dot 4th dot 8 10 Bottom right Reference point for the upper right dot Change... the lines will be located over the upper cover not the big piece. Note: The front fabric height was increased from 2.5 to 3 inches to accommodate standard USB flash drive sizes. 2.- Create a line for the first divider: First dot x 2.5 y 10 second dot (upper) x 2.5 y 8 (will be 2 inches long). 3.- Copy this line and pasted twice: Second line: First dot of second line (bottom) x 4.5 y 10 second dot (upper) x 4.5 y 10 (will be 2 inches long). 4.- Third line: First dot of second line x 6.5 y 10 second dot (upper) x 6.5 y 8 (will be 3 inches long). Initially the Wide of usb is 1 inches and a 2 inches is good wide, 2x4 8 inches, but a 5 inches wide also can be used, this will construct the square. Add lines of 3 inches each from bottom to the middle of the holder (2.5 inches approximated), this will create 3 divisions, that will allow to place 4 usb drives. Notes: This file was updated with measures that correspond to a real size usb drive 3 inches long, 1 inch wide, the size of your usb drive may be different. The objects were selected, and resized selecting either a corner or dot and using the ruler on the sides and top as reference. A 2 usb drives carrier would be 4 inches long and 3 inches wide, instead of 4 inches long 5 inches wide. Using a Universal Laser Cutting machine (ULS) Cutting lines Defining the cutting lines and raster lines. Change the lines for cutting (the borders) to 0.072 pts and red (000000) Vector scoring of sewing lines Vector scoring the lines... mark line over the fabric (or paper if testing), they will be used as a guide for sewing. Select the lines intended to serve as a guide for cutting and change the color to blue (0000FF). Change the stroke to 0.01 Cut. If you are testing just vector scoring to see dark lines as guides for cutting, select settings option, manual control, and do the following modifications: In the black (rast) option select all the values to 0 In the blue (vect) : Power to 200 (higher could damage the fabric), In the red (vect): All values to 0. and change the values. Testing the cut Print or select cut on the ULS software... use 0.1 as thickness of the material (paper or polyester)... If the material does not cut, increase the thickness to 1.5 or 0.2. This is a mixed cut, it combines cut lines and the guide liens... for this use the following setting: Black (Rast), leave at values 0. and press set. Blue... power 3$, speed 100 %, 200 ppi, and press set. Red, power 40 %, speed 10 % and 500 PPI, and press set. If the guide is still cut, reduce the power in blue from 3 to 2. Using a Glowforge laser cutter Upload the file, the lines will be pointed, select the material (example acrylic), the lines will be defined. The workaround with Glowforge is that once a file is uploaded it do only one action over it. In this case, the trick is to use the same file, but delete the guide liens... this will be the cut... Now use the same file, but delete all the cutting lines, and select engrave or raster for this other part. Mass Production of USB Holders Using a Laser Cutter When doing many USB Holders at once, the following steps can be used: use the initial file, make a 24x12 canvas, and copy the usb holder many times as needed in the canvas, one beside the other or near the other, save the file and a copy. Take all the usb drives dividing lines out of the image in one of the copies, and upload in Glowforge as cutting layer. Take the other copy of the image and take al the cutting parts leaving only the dividing lines, upload the file as a engraving layer, this will be your guide for where to sew the cut fabric. Note: If desired, a marking line can be added in the lower borders and sides of the upper layer of the usb holder, to serve also as sewing guide when sewing the extremes of the USB Holder. See also Short guide to the use of laser cutting machines/Use of Inkscape for Laser Cutting Short guide to the use of laser cutting machines/Use of Adobe Illustrator for Laser Cutting Short_guide_to_the_use_of_laser_cutting_machines/Laboratory/Cut_of_cursive_letters_for_display Short_guide_to_the_use_of_laser_cutting_machines/Tool_making_with_laser_cutting_machines