Shop update #365 (11-6-24) Craft Fair build up and I got a new laser!

Saturday was spent doing family and Marching Band activities.  Sunday was spent making items for the pending craft fair.

The craft fair that we will be vending at is giving goodie bags out to the first ten shoppers that arrive and I was asked to donate 10 items for those bags.  I found a plan for a small rocking chair with a living hinge online, so I downloaded it and modified it to fit 3mm wood and added my logo.  I will be donating 10 of these and 10 engraved pencils.

I engraved a total of 225 pencils.  10 will go to the goodie bags and I plan on handing the others out to people that stop by the booth and actually look interested in buying something.

I also cut out a couple of new box designs and experimented with spraying them with black laquer.

Last but not least, Wecreat sent me their new 40 watt Vision laser and I spent most of the evening making an unboxing video and then trying to get it to work with the Lightburn software.  They advertise it as Lightburn compatible but it was a pain in the butt to configure and it barely works.

The software that it comes with is very basic and does not allow you to change any of the speed or power levels directly.  You can only choose types of materials and thicknesses.  I cut this E logo at their recommended plywood setting and it totally burnt up the back of the wood.  I changed it to the basswood setting and it cut faster but still charred the wood.

I also tried making one of the rocking chairs and the living hinge snapped as the laser kerf for the 40 watt is larger than the kerf for my other 22 watt laser.

I went to my other laptop and exported one of the boxes (with the wrong lid) and then imported it into the dumb Wecreat software and ran the MDF as 3mm basswood and it did a decent job of cutting it but was still a little slow.  The exhaust for the smoke works pretty well but the hose is way too short.