DIY Laser Cut Clock

We needed a clock for the MakerSpace, so of course we made one!

Materials:

• 1/4" Bamboo Plywood (You can use any plywood, MDF, OSB, acrylic, etc)
• Mini quartz clock movement 1/4" shaft (shaft size should match thickness of your clockface material)
• Masking Tape
• AA Battery

Tools:

• Laser Cutter (We have a 40 watt Epilog Zing)
• Crescent Wrench
• Tweezers

1. Measure material (must be 12" x 24" or smaller)

2. Use masking tape to cover the side you will be cutting/engraving.

• This helps reduce burning and smoke/residue that is created through the laser cutting process.

Disclaimer: You do not have to create your artwork in Corel Draw, that is just the current industry standard for laser cutters. You can also create artwork in Photoshop, Illustrator, Inkscape, etc.

1. Pull up Corel Draw

2. Import/create your artwork (Video directions on how to use Corel Draw with the laser cutter above).

• Remember that only "hairline" thickness will vector laser cut, everything else will raster engrave.
• Remember your work cannot be larger than 24" x 12" (size of laser cutter print bed)

3. Create a hole in the center of your design for the mini quartz movement. The diameter of the shaft is .30".

• To create a perfect circle in Corel Draw with a .30 diameter, click the Ellipse Tool and hold CTRL+Shift while creating your circle.
• Then select the circle, click the Lock icon and change the dimension to .30".

Side note: I downloaded a clock face that i found through a google image search. I converted it to a vector image using a free online converter (http://www.autotracer.org/). I also found a vector image through a simple google search with some geometric artwork and saved it.

1. Click File>Print

2. Select Epilog Engraver WinX64 Zing

3. Click Preferences

4. Make sure you have Piece Size set to

• Horizontal: 24
• Vertical: 12

5. Refer to Laser Cutter Material Settings in the epilog manual

• Raster: 60 speed/100 power
• Vector: 10 speed/100 power/500 frequency

6. Click OK>Apply>Print

• This sends the file to the laser cutter

7. Lift the glass lid to the laser cutter and put your material facing upward in the upper left hand corner against the black measuring sticks

8. Click Focus on the laser cutter

• This temporarily allows you to adjust the bed of the laser to focus to your material size. Press the Up arrow to raise the bed, and Down arrow to lower the bed. When the silver dongle is barely touching the material, it is in focus

9. Lower the glass lid, and click the green GO button on the laser

10. LASER BEAMS!

1. Remove masking tape

• This can be a bit time consuming, and your fingers will definitely get a little dirty. Tweezers will help remove the smallest pieces.

2. Install the mini quartz hardware following the simple instructions pictured.

The numbers 1-5 did not show up very well because of the engraving of the geometric design. So I decided to laser cut some bamboo veneer and adhere it over the numbers. This could have been mitigated during the design had i thought it all the way through.