How I Design for Laser Cutting // My CAD Workflow

Free cut files and guide from my website:
www.furtherfabrication.com/resources?category=Laser
Today I'll take you through my workflow when designing an object for Laser Cutting.
If you'd like to know more about building your own Laser Cutter, I've got a whole series on it that you can check out:
kzbin.info/www/bejne/qmWll4R9nc2VhbM
Instagram:
further_fabrication

[@Ed_Downunder]

Nice to see people interested in community not just the money. Thank you for your time and effort.

[@FurtherFabrication]

You're welcome mate!

[@Dogoodramos]

I use and have used: fusion, inventor, solidwords, pro E and auto cad. For my day jobs. I think inventor, solid words and inventor will be good for this. This is awesome. Im going to try this thanks!

[@tahirhashmi2533]

I gave up autocad long long time ago. But the only thing that still interests me is the 3D. I have nearly forgotten all the commands. Surprisingly, I jumped up to youtube finding hot to design laser cut, but on the back of my head was the idea of a JAPANESE model and VOILA. This is inspired me so much I have no words. Been sitting idle with so much creative ideas. I am going to do this now. will jump to the software and all the details. Thank you so much brother. Really loved the video and all the details.

[@tomben9609]

You really get that Weta Workshop vibes, high technicality and craftsmanship, you're talented it's beautiful

[@UnexpectedMaker]

That was wild - and what a beautiful end result! Thanks for sharing your process and for making the design files available!

[@joshuadelisle]

I've literally just designed a lantern for laser cutting from steel. Ryno looks very similar to SketchUp which is what I use. You've done a great job and love your machine too. Well done.

[@kiresdl]

Great video colegue! I also use Rhino in my laser cutting workflow because mainly 3 reasons: First, it let me interact between architects, designers and engineers. (read their standard files). Second, it has features that other CAD software doesn't have. And it let me work more easily and "freely" between 2D and 3D.

[@carolwargin8160]

Wow I was mesmerized watching you design. Thank You, its beautiful.

Great job. I always start my design process in SolidWorks. Set up the right material thickness from the beginning, but makes the holes slightly oversized. Then I use Deepnest for nesting and then Lightburn communicates with the laser. Thanks for charing.

[@smol-honk]

Thank you so much for putting the files online for free!

[@dalisushange1071]

Really appreciate you bro. I'm starting a new laser cutting business, and I need all the I help I can get. Your videos are a blessing

[@jimudd5836]

I have not yet gone to the laser cutting, but are investigating this as second step from 3d printing, my workflow uses freeCAD, Blender, Inkscape and Gimp for personal production, But at work I'm in autodesk autocad and revit mostly with 3D. Thanks for greit inspiring videos with build and design around laser cutters. Best regards from Sweden. PS so far this has been best series I gone throught deciding if to invest in laser cutter build

[@3164U]

I think one of the coolest parts of your channel is how you provide the files for free. I think I might make this one.

[@lone9787]

You are incredible. It's really nice see what a brilliant and creative brain can do with a habilit person.

[@cliffgeter1105]

Enjoyed watching your workflow...I used Intergraph MicroStation for many years...Thanks for the cut file...

[@JohnFlower-NZ]

This was a fascinating video to watch because I'm wanting to head in the same direction. I like the emphasis that having skill in a software package can be more important than which package. I liked seeing the overview of the whole process along with explanation for why things were done, or not done. Recently I've been developing a similar workflow (but my ability is much lower than what is shown in the video) using Blender > Inkscape > CorelDraw X5 > Eplilog Helix Laser. In my case I've made a few boxes from 3mm plywood for Wingspan (boardgame) to hold after market tokens (as a New Zealander it was a delight to find an American company supplying NZ birds). One of the rabbit holes I'm following is using Geometry Nodes (Blender's parametric workflow) to help with arbitrary dimension changes and to have a toggle between 2d art for export and 3d art for visualisation. Thank you for making this video.

[@tillycrafts]

That was amazing, never seen anything made from scratch before thankyou

[@alvaroconejo452]

Who would give this video a thumbs down. Just doesn't make any sense. Amazing vid. Thanks for sharing!!!

[@keithressler5400]

Really beautiful creation Rob -- I know I was at least one person who asked about your design process last video and I appreciate some of the insights like the beam "kerf" you design for and the way you account for tolerances in the model. I'm an electrical engineer and don't generally use 3d design software in my day job but since I've gotten into the 3D stuff, I've taught myself Fusion 360 (to answer your question) and am looking forward to taking baby steps toward a design like this. In case you're keeping tabs since your last video, my 9mm belt from Powge is still stuck in customs so I bought some from a private seller in a 3d printer community I'm involved with...it should be on its way across the states. In the mean time I designed a table and cabinets for the Y-400 and got started on that -- I can't wait to build the laser. Cheers.

[@FurtherFabrication]

thanks Keith, glad to hear your getting some progress on the belt and the Y400 build! Fusion360 is a pretty great all rounder, good choice

[@manjunathadk6848]

This man is really awesome in explaining ....thank you so much brother....

[@yootoob7048]

That turned out great. I've been modeling in SketchUp for five years and am now learning Blender.

[@FurtherFabrication]

Thanks, I've only just started Blendering too! with that new UI it's much easier to get a grip on now

[@waverlyphillips2849]

Beautiful design and work.

[@Dezanova]

Only just discovered your channel, so good. My new binge watch. Might be my new favorite KZbin channel

[@romiolover6852]

You really deserve a huge like for that beautiful work.

[@studio70audio]

Thanks for share the project. Petrópolis/Rio de Janeiro/Brazil.

[@Darphi01]

Great job Rob. I'll give this one a try when I eventually finish my laser cutter build. From the plans I purchased from you of course 👍

[@firman.akhmad]

Awesome job Rob, now I have a lot idea to use my CAD skill to do business other than drafting only. Thanks !!

[@EricBernal]

Amazing video. I wish I could learn how to do the tabs and slots like you do.

[@Hennysgarage]

I am thoroughly impressed with what you did there, and the cheap/free files you included in your website. Once I saw that, I went back to youtube so I didn’t forget to subscribe. Cheers

[@alexon2010]

Really a very beautiful job... I'm a Product Designer programmer... I've been designing my CNC Router for industrial use for some time.... but that anyone can buy and assemble.... it's getting cool... .then I also want to manufacture my own laser cutter.... I want to set up a company for courses and use of machines that produce drawings in general, either 2D or 3D that is just a printed material for a physical drawing. Congratulations on your work, I'll follow you around here....

[@elroyjacobs8126]

Wow, really happy that I found this channel.

[@etchmfg]

Great design - I've attempted to learn CAD a couple times and am still struggling with terminology and processes, hope to "get there" sooner than later!

[@FurtherFabrication]

It's totally worth when you get there, don't give up!

[@adammaciorowski]

Thanks Rob for another very interesting tutorial and motivation video. I have to start firing some thing with my K40 laser..

[@IronMessenger]

That is an amazing lamp and very good cad design as well. Thanks for sharing!! I need to step up my CAD game for sure... it's a limitation for these types of projects.

[@3DJapan]

I'm not a big CAD guy but I do use MoI3D for CAD stuff. For regular 3D I use the obvious choice LightWave 3D. For sculpting it's the other obvious choice, 3D-Coat.

[@victorpardoherrera643]

I usually design everything in Illustrator but it gets really hard when 3d parts aren't at squared angles, when I want to do something more advanced I use a Catia license I have from my university but the parametric constraints are very time consuming. Awesome job you did! beautiful end result too.

[@rmces84]

That lantern looks awesome.

[@islamtv1987]

Hi thank you very much for free project its great help god blessed you good luck for your business, I wish you big success in your life

[@dg6278]

Very impressive. Looks beautiful. I’m going to give it a try. Thank you for putting that out there for people to try.

[@rebeccareulet131]

This is beautiful. You are very talented. Thanks for the file. I’m waiting for my first laser cutter to come in.

[@fireandice96]

I'm all new to this. Thank you so much for your videos!!!

[@musoangelo]

Wow. That's absolutely beautiful.

[@TheOneAndOnlyTateums]

Awesome video! I really enjoyed your process and work! Personally I'm a designer/drafter and have been using Autodesk Inventor for the last 6 years and really enjoy it. It's interesting to see the differences though.

[@Fordham0815]

A wonderful design. Thank you for sharing. Can't wait to have a look at your website

[@chrisdixonstudios]

Enjoyable vid on your process..without the lerning struggles parts, lol. Alibre, lightburn, gimp, inkscape, Blender and z brush help my novice laser and 3d model designs

[@sannytuban9240]

Awesome! I can see that you are so passionate in doing your piece. All the best to you!

[@danmurphy5660]

Love to see the way you do things. Alibre has been my goto for a long time now. Thanks for the vids man

[@usafa1987]

Very nice vid! I’m a Fusion360 person but I loved seeing Rhino in action. Looked very fluid.

[@FurtherFabrication]

That's the one things that holds me back in Fusion atm compared to Rhino, I haven't spent enough time really hammering in a proper workflow to get the same kind of speed

[@elfvinson4598]

Thank you for the insight into you design process and the pattern.

[@ktisistoukuriou]

I learned on Sketchup, but years ago switched to Fusion 360, and still use the education license (I am a teacher, and occasionally teach some design. Mostly I justify it by creating models I use in my classroom). I use blender to touch up models and add more organic features, but haven't climbed the learning curve to model from scratch in blender.

[@ktisistoukuriou]

In fusion, a 'sketch' is the set of curves on a plane, and these can be exported as DXF files, which is what I export and bring into the laser cutting software. No need to explode the 3d model, just have to make sure you get all the files.

[@FurtherFabrication]

Awesome, thanks for the tip!

[@mazrimchj]

Nice videos. Just got myself an engraver and whilst proficient in photoshop/illustrator, i've not used CAD before. I've got a lot of learning to do.

[@AlwaysCensored-xp1be]

Inkscape and laser cutter.

[@eddychandra8698]

Thanks Always success for you . Your kindness to share this file free

[@thefaithfullservantemmanue8227]

Your a beast bro I want to be like you when I grow up

[@ronstaton3622]

This is fantastic. Well done!

[@chrisciraldo4935]

Really nice design you make look easy but I’m so lost on it kudos to showing us your work

[@remi0321]

nice. A lot of job for a cool design. really nice to share it for free !

[@FurtherFabrication]

Thanks. no problem!

[@domesday1535]

Solidworks is my cad software of choice but I also dabble in fusion 360. Really cool to see the artistic side of your workflow. I'm currently building a laser that takes most of its inspiration from your y-1200 design, thanks for going through the effort to make that documentation and put it up for sale

[@FurtherFabrication]

Glad to hear you found it helpful! Nice, do you find there's a lot of differences between a Solidworks vs Fusion360 workflow? In my 'limited' experience they seem quite similar in their sketch driven modelling approach

[@domesday1535]

@@FurtherFabrication They are deceivingly similar. Building a part is almost identical if you don't delve into mechanical analysis but the biggest difference is working with assemblies of more than one part. Solidworks uses mates instead of joints which you can have many of between the same two parts. Typically each one only limits a single degree of freedom so joining two parts rigidly could take up to 6 mates. I'm not completely convinced solidworks does it better but that's what I'm most fluent in so I like it. Solidworks also doesn't use a timeline, each new feature e.g. chamfer becomes a drop down item on the object list on the left as long as you don't bump into either of those things you might make a part without even realizing which software you're using

[@FurtherFabrication]

That's such a good point about mates vs joints. Given the price difference it's unlikely I'll get into Solidworks, so it's great to get that insight from you

[@menachemaltaras5653]

....Just beautifull - And I too use rhino but for 3D Prints

[@bradenwilson]

Awesome job! I’m also an industrial designer and spend my days in Rhino so really appreciate your workflow... I have a China Blue so was surprised to see you were exporting to rdworks too... End result was beautiful and didn’t have generic that laser cut look.

[@ShopDad]

Beautiful design. Many nice extra touches. Fusion 360 dabbler here.

[@thewatsonian8111]

Great video. Really appreciate the free files to try ourselves.

[@antoniskartalas8230]

one of the best videos out there!!!

[@JTZemp]

Such a cool design! Thanks for the walkthrough of your workflow.

[@FurtherFabrication]

My pleasure!

[@xankru5270]

So good I found you. Will definitely buy from you in future.

[@chrisbarnes8887]

Nice work with this. For my CAD software I have access through work both AutoCAD and Inventor from AutoDesk and enjoy using both.

[@greener121]

very cool design and approach, love it!

[@LOCKEYJ]

I started laser cutting about a week ago. I design in 2D using Adobe illustrator... but I can really see how 3D would help for more complex models. I’m still learning at the moment but I’m being strict about not downloading any designs or copying anything outright and just trying to design myself learning principles from videos like yours. I made a clamshell travel boardgame this week that I’m really pleased with. Plan is to eventually start selling original work.

[@FurtherFabrication]

Awesome, welcome to the Laser party!

[@yvindBrathen]

Gorgeous. Thanks a lot!

[@VIPMaJoR89]

Interesting video. But I especially liked your series on how to build a laser cutter. Thats a project I want to tackle too in the future. And to answer your question. When I want a quick and dirty prototype for 3D-Printing I use Tinkercad, for more detailed and refined models Fusion 360 and to visualize bigger stuff, like how I want my furniture arranged when I move later next month, I use SketchUp. Plus I have dabbled in AutoCad and Siemens NX about ten years ago.

[@FurtherFabrication]

Glad you enjoyed the series, I had a lot of fun building it! Nice, always useful to be able to use different programs depending on the situation!

[@hiniewinie]

So gonna have this in my house.

[@stalama1]

Wow! Beautiful stuff. Thanks!

[@Raynecolwell]

Yeah, I’m never gonna be able to do this. Lol Thank you for the video.

[@MrAndrew242424]

"pretending to draw" hehe love your design bro!! love it!!

[@CountOfMontyCrypto]

Well explained vid regarding workflow.

[@BG-hg7cp]

Don't have a laser yet but do have a cnc wondering how this would work out with it. May give it a try soon. Thanks for the free designs. Subbed

[@mubashirahmad9694]

Thank you for the video! Loved the process.

[@propsandpop9726]

Awesome overview of your work. 13 years game industry veteran here so I use Maya and Zbrush. Maya not super accurate like a CAD software, but I can work in MM so it does the job lol. Hope to learn Fusion 360 one of these days though since I have my own rapid prototyping business...too lazy sometimes lol.

[@zoerockett8341]

Awesome stuff Rob so interesting to see your workflow

[@FurtherFabrication]

Thanks Zoe

[@MCRobinMC]

Nice video.I Learned a lot and thanks for sharing your knowledge 👍🏽

[@forster46]

You should definitely do a tutorial on how you made your finished instructions for this!

[@love2cad]

Fantastic design!! Thank you for sharing!! Cheers!

[@uckfayooglegay9982]

I'd definitely be interested in a video on making instructions. As for CAD programs I'm currently learning OpenSCAD but might also try some more traditional programs.

[@cooperstownnyrealestate]

I don't like google either, they show me what they want and make me think its the whole world.

[@Andonchoto]

Wooow! Bro, you are a a beast!

[@pblackcrow]

I would love to see you do the komiko design in the Raven of the Inner Palace for a shoji lamp.

[@AB-ms2xy]

Awesome video and awesome lamp.

[@TheLoremistress]

Nice concept. I use Coreldraw mostly but also use Autodesk at times. I export to a dxf file and use lightburn for generating the cut paths

[@JimVanderveen]

Beautiful design!

[@biodieseler1]

These are great videos, more please!

[@LuisRaneroGT]

thank you for sharing this amazing work!

[@matthmbg]

Love the video, you make it look so easy! Would be great to see how you design the slots and tabs on your projects. Cheers from AU!

[@FurtherFabrication]

Cheers mate, I'll try put together a longer format video on just the CAD stuff

[@DesignPrototypeTest]

Wow! Another KZbinr that uses Rhino! Awesome.

[@simonholden8523]

I've been taught solidworks and am used to that, however now that I'm no longer at University I may learn fusion due to cost

[@FurtherFabrication]

I used solidworks at uni as well, however I haven't used it since. Fusion seems to be a pretty great all rounder - especially for the price

[@joesmith2465]

did you see the deal titian of CNC has 20$ for a year sub for solidworks 2021

[@simonholden8523]

@@joesmith2465 no!? Where do I find this?

[@joesmith2465]

@@simonholden8523 they just posted a video yesterday I think

[@oneheadlight8000]

@@joesmith2465 I heard solidworks is going to a 99 a year hobby license.

[@DanielH]

I love your work my friend

[@MindiLynn3]

Incredible!! ❤️ Thank you!!

[@d.a.s6988]

Wow that is amazing

[@nurzadakhansisenbaev6449]

this is so beautiful

[@precisioncardmodels]

Hmm, I usually use curve offset on the final parts to accomodate for kerf. Also work on Rhino.

[@FurtherFabrication]

Nice, yeah I'll do that as well if I know it needs to be super specific

[@victorzamora101]

4:10 to 4:45 is literally magic to me.

[@skinife]

Really nice, good job! By the way, I use Fusion 360 for my models.

[@samlenlap]

Please make a rhino tutorial for laser cutting design That will be really helpful Thanks I mostly use inkscape Now learning freecad Looking forward to other programs