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Last year I sent a few projects to Ponoko to be laser cut from
transparent acrylic. Here's some impressions on the process and the
results.
The process is dead simple, just design the thing as an svg file
(templates for different sizes are available on their site) and
sent it to be cut. The three types of cuts you can use are 1) the
basic cut, 2) engraving cut, and 3) raster shading. These are
defined via line/fill colours.
There are a few minor grievances: the system only accepts lines
defined to be a certain, microscopic width, so you can't see
anything if you use the actual line widths. It would have made more
sense to use a line width of the laser (0.2 mm), which would have
made adding margins intuitive. The file upload/material selection
UI is a bit clunky, forcing you to go through a bunch of menus to
select correct material, size and thickness each time. Postage to
outside US is prohibitive, but I managed to use a 'murican
middlewoman to reduce it.
The cut quality is pretty consistent, but adding 0.1 mm of margin
sometimes results in a dangerously snug fit (acrylic is pretty
brittle), sometimes a loose fit. Ponoko has tutorials on fighting
this by using convex edge sections, but my things were too small to
utilize this.
Enough whining, here's what I got. This is the structure of a
diamond, inspired by someone (can't find the site) making a 3D go
'board' out of zigzagging wire.
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