Box

[Hannu Rinne]

Here is a small box design with flexible hinges (for free use). I made it from 3mm hardboard.

Happy New Year to all !
Hannu

[Scott A Whitehouse]

I love the design. Thank You!

[Dee Gallo]

Very nice design Hannu, thank you! I'm going to try it!

[Frank Corker]

Nice design and good use of that new type hinge joint.

[Khalid Nazim]

This is fantastic. Thanks Hannu.

[Greg Bednar]

It looks very viewer and user friendly. I like the looks of this one.

[Dee Gallo]

Ummm, could you please post the file in x3 or earlier for those of us who are not so up to date? Thank you, dee

[Hannu Rinne]

Dee,

Here it is in v11. Hope this works for everyone :)

Best regards,
Hannu

[Emily Wilson]

Hannu,

This is super! I love the curves at the corner and spine. Lots of inspiration here. Many thanks for posting.

[Ron Chapellaz]

Looks great Hannu! The only thing missing is a design or photo on it!

[Hannu Rinne]

Thanks to all for your kind answers - it would be nice to see if any of you have invented something new into it :)

Best regards,
Hannu

[Cassondra Bennett]

This is beautiful thank you for sharing it I am just not sure what is "hardboard"???

[Gary Hair]

This is beautiful thank you for sharing it I am just not sure what is "hardboard"???

AKA masonite. Don't get "tempered masonite", it's very hard and won't cut as well. Home Depot should carry both.

Gary

[Gary Hair]

I just made one out of clear, 1/8" acrylic. It turned out really nice and the hinges work very well. I had to modify the hole sizes a bit to accomodate the thickness of the acrylic and the kerf of the laser, but that only took a few minutes. I think I'll try some bamboo ply, it lasers really nicely and should cut well too.
Thanks for the great design!

Gary

[Hannu Rinne]

Acrylic, wow - I never even thought it would work, thanks for the tip Gary ! And yes, those holes are a bit too large, I've noticed the same...needs some adjustments :)

Regards,
Hannu

[Michael Kowalczyk]

I have been playing around with some of our 3mm Baltic Birch and 1/8" Premium MDF core material and have had some fun making some for my Nephews. Will post a pic later. So how long does it take to make one on your laser? Just curious since we all have the same file but different materials and machines. Mine take just at 4 minutes with engravings on top and on front. Subtract the engraving and it's around 2 1/2 minutes.

Thanks Hannu for adding on to the hinge that was posted a while back. I like the way you added the rounded corners and they act like a spring to hold the box tenons in place.

I also like the the 2 semi circle pins/keys for the back of the box and how you used the hinge and the pins as sort of a functional design element.

Thanks again for sharing and inspiring us to kinda collaborate.

[Gary Hair]

Acrylic, wow - I never even thought it would work,

The only bad thing about acrylic is that it crazes when you glue it, not so bad with colors but it's very noticeable with clear. It does look pretty cool though.

[Michael Kowalczyk]

Ok So here are a few from different perspectives and the 2 different materials. Not sure how clear it will be since I had to down size the original.

[Khalid Nazim]

Michael, can you share your settings that got these times for engraving/cutting?

[Gary Hair]

So, acrylic may have sounded like a good idea but it's not going to work, not with cast anyway. I heard an odd noise a minute ago and looked at the box - the hinge was slowly cracking. I don't have any extruded, I'll get some and try it, hopefully it won't crack.

Gary

[Scott Challoner]

So, acrylic may have sounded like a good idea but it's not going to work, not with cast anyway. I heard an odd noise a minute ago and looked at the box - the hinge was slowly cracking. I don't have any extruded, I'll get some and try it, hopefully it won't crack.

Gary

Try impact modified acrylic. It's not as brittle. PETG would work too but it doesn't cut as nice.

[Michael Kowalczyk]

Hey Khalid,
They are my normal 3mm Baltic birch setting with a 2" lens:
Raster-100% power and 35% speed 333 DPI
Vector cut -100% power-1.15% speed and 5000 hz

Trotec has an optimizer built in to the Job Control that shaves about 40 seconds off of the time just by changing the order from the original one posted here. The hinges take up the most time, obviously, but that is where the most time can be saved. Just watch where the start positions are and you'll know what I mean. It, the original CDR file, basically runs over each line twice instead of chaining them in a better sequence and with proper starting points, once it has been corrected by the Vector ordering menu option in the Trotec Job Control.

[Gerd Spatz]

it would be nice to see if any of you have invented something new into it :)
Best regards,
Hannu

I'm to lazy to draw each box (fingerjoints / flexible hinges) by hand, so i wrote a browserapp to simplify this... I just have to enter some parameters, selecting one of 3 boxtypes, clicking a button - ready to cut.

Free download (type 2 - right image / made for 3mm plywood):
http://www.frag-den-spatz.de/shop/boxgenerator/downloads/simplebox-type2.svg

Gerd

[Joe Hillmann]

Here is a book cover I made of 1/4 in luan. It takes about 5min 30 seconds to cut it out and less than a minute to put it together (should be faster with 1/8) But all the other engraving took almost 20 minutes. The outside I tried to make it look like a book cover and on the inside I engraved the map that is from the book. If you look close at the 4th photo you might be able to see where I engraved lines into the ends of the case to look like pages.
219383219384219385219386219387I still need to come up with some type of latch. Most likely made of leather, I like the latch that was shown in the first picture in this thread but it wouldn't work on a book shelf because it sticks out too much.

[Dee Gallo]

Very helpful, Michael, thanks!

Beautiful designs, Gerd! I need to try your download, thanks!

Excellent job, Joe!

This forum certainly produces some inspiring stuff! Love it!

~ dee

[stan kern]

made one ,amazing design

[Hannu Rinne]

Michael, Gerd & Joe,

Very nice work, thank you !


Attached some small additions into the box, I had nothing else to do today :D - saved in v11, or at least it should be...:)

Regards,
Hannu

[stan kern]

its just great

http://youtu.be/EYayNCpdeuE cardboard box

[Bill Gailey]

On a whim I reduced Hannu's original cdr file by 50% and laser cut it into a black/black core matboard and evrything worked. The reduction in the tab openings, etc was perfect for the thickness of the matboard. Made 45 of these little boxes for a presentation last week to a group of businesses. I also lasered a sugar cookie with the word "Imagine" on top and put them inside the box. I used some purple glue stick to glue the tabs and lock pieces, other than than the key on the top of the box. This turned out great and has already led to a job with a pen turner to make custom boxes for his custom pens. Now I have to try the svg app and see how that works.

[Khalid Nazim]

That's a fantastic idea - on top of the amazing design that Hannu did. How much time did it take for you to make one box from matboard - cutting and assembly.

[Bill Gailey]

My laser is a 24x36 table so I cut the 32x40 matboard into 2 pieces 20x32. I was able to put 16 sets of the box on each sheet. It took 33 minutes to cut all 16 sets so just over 2 minutes each for cutting time. The assembly took longer than the cutting but the wow factor at the meeting was worth the time. I wanted to do a cutout in the lid part but decided against it so they couldn't see the cookie until the box was opened. This would work great with different colors of matboard and engraving on the lid. I also have the Magic Touch system and plan on doing some boxes with full color print on the top of the box.

[stan kern]

here is one in cardboard'
http://youtu.be/EYayNCpdeuE cardboard box lasered

[Chester Lindgren]

Looks like someone took this book idea and made a kickstarter project: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/137416080/book-box-project-wood-box-with-real-wood-spine?ref=category

[Hannu Rinne]

I feel happy if someone can make some money with it :)

Regards,
Hannu

[Khalid Nazim]

Hannu's design is much more elegant and practical to assemble. The design in the kickstarter project is based on an old posting on Thingiverse.

And Hannu, thank you very much for your generosity as I am also using your design to show case what the laser can do and hopefully get some orders :)

[Mike Berndt]

The box layout and design is flawless. I did a test on 1/8" baltic birch and it was a go!!!! I have subscribed to the website to design these boxes, It is a great deal and such a low cost to get things done. My students now have it madewithout the headache of making major design mishaps!!! Thanks and will post pics of student successes.
Mike Berndt

[Hannu Rinne]

Lastly a few different designs, thanks to all for your interest. Stan, nice video - Bill and Khalid, I hope that you'll get some big orders :)

Best regards,
Hannu

[Michael Kowalczyk]

Hey Hannu,
Boy how long did that lattice pattern one in the middle take to laser??? Cool combo of materials with the Acrylic one. I tried some mat-board last night and some fun foam but the fun foam wasn't as fun :( as I thought it would be and not very practical since it is already flexible and it does stretch a little plus the laser melts it a little bit so you don't have clean crisp lines, more like little bulges, on the hinge area. I was going for the color combo of the iridescent purple and green. Since my fav color is apurple and my daughter's is green, I was going to cut 1 of each and swap some parts.

Since you have a 60 watt also, I would be curious to see how long it would take on our Trotec to cut the same one. PM me if you want to send the file direct to my email for a comparison or post it here if you want.

Thanks and ...

[Hannu Rinne]

Hi Michael,

The cutting (design at the middle) took about 15 minutes (if I remember right). I think your Trotec is much more quicker (I'm envious :)). The last design on the right side isn't finished - it is a combination of acrylic and hardboard (just a test) - you have to make some adjustment, especially you have to fix the small "locking" pieces (you'll notice after cutting). Pictures what I've made with Corel aren't so perfect at all, so you have to make your own adjustment for those to get the best results... (...and again, I'm sorry about my English...). (Attached files; design 2 is made from hardboard - design 3 is made from acrylic and hardboard)

Best regards,
Hannu

[stan kern]

the box design is great

[Mike Berndt]

What would you get for a basic box like this? I am going to make a few few and sell them to raise money for my middle school woodworking program. Thanks again Hannu for putting this out there.

Mike Berndt

[Mike vonBuelow]

super cool, very unique! luv it!

[Michael Kowalczyk]

Hi Michael,

The cutting (design at the middle) took about 15 minutes (if I remember right). I think your Trotec is much more quicker (I'm envious :)). The last design on the right side isn't finished - it is a combination of acrylic and hardboard (just a test) - you have to make some adjustment, especially you have to fix the small "locking" pieces (you'll notice after cutting). Pictures what I've made with Corel aren't so perfect at all, so you have to make your own adjustment for those to get the best results... (...and again, I'm sorry about my English...). (Attached files; design 2 is made from hardboard - design 3 is made from acrylic and hardboard)

Best regards,
Hannu

HEy Hannu,
Thanks for sharing the files. I ran them in the time estimator and they came out as follows:
design2 = 12:53 without doing anything other than convert to my colors and make all lines "hairline"
design2 = 11:27 used vector ordering (optimizer in Trotec Job Control) using 2" lens
design2 = 9:04 used vector ordering (optimizer in Trotec Job Control) and settings for 1 1/2" lens.

Will try to laser a few to see how actual time comes out but it is usually accurate to within a few seconds.

Does your system allow you to optimize your vectors?

Thanks again and ...

[Hannu Rinne]

Hi Michael,

GCC print driver includes the optimization mode for vector, but I haven't tried it yet...:o (thank's for the tip - I have to test it to see how much it will speed up cutting :p)

Best regards,
Hannu

[Gary Hair]

Hannu,
The optimization mode and cluster setting can save more time than you can imagine. I have an anodized aluminum piece that has three sections that I engrave. If I engrave them all "normally", without cluster, they take 2:35. If I use cluster it reduces the time to 1:10 - that's quite a bit considering I have thousands of parts to run. The cluster setting should be the distance between segments that you want to engrave separately - mine are all over 2.75" apart so I set cluster to 2.5 - anything that is farther than 2.5" away gets engraved separately.

Gary

[Khalid Nazim]

Hannu,

What power/speed settings did you use on your machine to cut design 2?

Regards
Khalid

[Hannu Rinne]

Thanks Gary,

It's always a pleasure to learn something new :p My motto is to do things as fast as possible without thinking - and then suffer the sanctions :D

Best regards,
Hannu

[Hannu Rinne]

Khalid,

The settings was Speed;6% Power;100% DPI;380 PPI;400 - with the design 3 (with acrylic) Speed;3% Power;100% DPI;1000 PPI;400

Best regards,
Hannu

[stan kern]

http://youtu.be/v_0xSSF3P5w cutting a the cardboard box with owl picture