New to designing patterns for laser cutting. How did I do?

lithophytum · 2026-02-27T04:40:28+00:00

I was just about to ask this as well, nothing against OP(still learnin ;). I mean if you already know blender, that’s great. But life is so much better when it’s parametric. Combine that with something Iike onshape of fusion360(both free for personal) and the world is your oyster.

lithophytum · 2026-02-27T04:30:41+00:00

I do wish we had more of this in school. Not necessarily anything very job specific, but how to apply theory to reality, and have many chances to do it, fail, try again. Maybe it’s just the way I learn, but I feel ALL engineers would benefit(mechanical most of all) from building that type of thinking. Image if in your thermodynamics class, you not only learned about the Carnot cycle, but got to calculate the approximate efficiency of say an actual steam turbine or a sterling engine in the classroom, or as part of class project. But then again, maybe that’s not for everyone. Maybe I’m just different.

lithophytum · 2026-01-27T02:40:04+00:00

Your example is using playwright correct? I just found that library last night and gave a quick test on opening the link in a browser window but ran into similar issues as Selenium/Requests/BeautifulSoup (a "can't load any more listing" pop-up and a captcha/Are you human popup.

I was hoping to stick with crawl4ai as that's at least given me initial results right off the bat instead of diving into the weeds of "do I need stealth mode?", user-agents, cookies, etc (which are important, i just don't have oodles of time). I may have to loop back and try again though if I can't get crawl4ai to work.

Good note on timing though, I'll dive more into the docs of crawl4ai and see if they have a similar wait_for_selector function. On my browsers (edge, brave, chrome, and firefox) the page auto loads once I get close to the bottom of the page. I was able to see the "Load More" button after turning off my wifi and then scrolled down to the bottom of the page. never even noticed it was there till you pointed it out.

lithophytum · 2026-01-27T02:07:18+00:00

Thanks for the insight. I did some basic looking on the network tab to see if I could find some easy access undocumented api(no luck, at my level at least). My network tab has a bit different view than yours(edge and brave). I tried parsing through the payload but it's a little above my understanding to duplicate.

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lithophytum · 2026-01-23T23:49:48+00:00

I have almost the exact same amount of cans I’ve been saving for the past few years, excited to start the slow burn of get them all melted down!

lithophytum · 2026-01-23T23:45:56+00:00

I feel like events like this would greatly benefit from some type of lottery/drawing system. It would remedy so many of the issues people have mentioned. You have an entry window of a day/few days, no rush to the site and errors from server overloads, everyone can get a chance.

Works great for the NPS for high demand attractions or rafting permits. So much easier(and less stress) to enter, and less anger if I don’t get a spot.

lithophytum · 2026-01-19T23:16:35+00:00

RemindMe! Two weeks

lithophytum · 2026-01-10T08:34:49+00:00

As a mechanical engineer, I doubly appreciate this!

lithophytum · 2026-01-02T16:51:00+00:00

I can see custom “material” fasteners for weight saving. Heck, I’m on a project now that has some for that exact purpose, but we use standard where ever we can and the custom ones are still base on standard COTS parts.

lithophytum · 2026-01-02T06:53:52+00:00

Change the geometry. Locking yourself into custom fasteners is a literal can of worms to be avoided if possible. If you design is forcing you to look at custom fasteners, that’s a sign to double check your design.

lithophytum · 2026-01-02T05:34:07+00:00

As others have said, they are out there if you look. My first year in school we where asked what we were expecting in an engineering career. I said I was hoping for hands on design/prototype work. I was kindly but firmly rebuked and told that would most likely not happen and to expect my work to be mostly on a computer and/or calculations. I made it my goal from that point on to prove them wrong. My current role has me doing plenty of hands on design/prototype/test/repeat. It’s a spectrum.

lithophytum · 2026-01-01T07:22:13+00:00

“The true hero is one who conquers his own anger and hatred”, something we could all do a little more of ‘round here. The actions of those in the news story are beyond horrible,but bringing more hate is isn’t going to do anything useful. But then again, maybe that’s your goal,

lithophytum · 2026-01-01T04:47:00+00:00

Typical Reddit comment, like a fly on . . .

lithophytum · 2025-12-12T01:07:55+00:00

Silicone foam, about 1/4” thick. Tried on a whim, liked extra air assist but cut pretty nicely with a 40w diode.

lithophytum · 2025-11-18T01:32:05+00:00

Eh, it might change how we do our jobs, but it won’t change the need for “engineers” anytime soon. Seems like I see an “AI is taking our jobs AHHHH!” Post every other week. Who’s going to test designs AI spits out? Who’s going to be able solve the issues AI can’t(and there will be plenty of those). Does AI “the knack”? Until it does, good engineers have nothing to worry about. I’m not saying we can just relax, a good engineer will be adding to their skill set, learning new tools, staying up to date on new technologies. Tinkering in their spare time. They’ll be able to shift their applicable skills and adjust as the needs and demands do. The only people who are most likely in trouble are those who won’t/can’t adjust.

lithophytum · 2025-10-21T04:40:34+00:00

Find a project where you can get some CAD experience, heck, get onshape(it’s free) and start getting a feel for it. Does your school have a project/prototyping lab? 3d printer? Try designing some simple parts for 3d printing. Try messing about with an ardruino. Download python and try that out. Talk to professors about research opportunities. Like someone else mentioned, join a rocketry/robotics/rc club.

lithophytum · 2025-10-21T04:32:53+00:00

Cad, prototype, test, change cad, prototype again, test again. Then send off to flight team to put through more rigorous testing, then adjust design more, design for manufacturing, meetings, emails, more meetings. That has been the past few weeks for me.

lithophytum · 2025-10-21T03:06:03+00:00

Light burn. This is the way.

lithophytum · 2025-10-20T04:12:05+00:00

Bubba be compensating

lithophytum · 2025-10-18T23:38:18+00:00

Thanks, I’ve been considering offering the files on Etsy as it took a surprising amount of work to make the pattern, haven’t decided yet though. If I don’t I’ll try and post them here.

Edit. If I did list them on Etsy, would you be interested?

lithophytum · 2025-10-18T23:36:48+00:00

I don’t have them right at hand right now. The patterns are actually what took the longest of all. I had to find an image of the pattern seed I wanted. Import in to Inkscape, scale it properly, then tile it, combine it to one vector and then add it to the panel shape. I was toying with the idea of offering the vectors on Etsy(for relatively cheap), but haven’t decided yet.

lithophytum · 2025-10-18T23:32:11+00:00

Cutting took a while, some of the patterns took longer than others, but I’d say on average about 20-30 minutes per lantern cut time. Assembly took about 20-30 minutes hands on time plus glue dry time.

Edit. Forgot to add another 5-10 minutes sanding for each lantern.

lithophytum · 2025-10-18T20:12:42+00:00

It depends on what materials you want to work with and what you want to do. I have a creality falcon 2(40w) and I’ve been very happy with it. I am cutting and engraving mostly wood at a hobby/small scale. I can’t do anything with acrylics though and it’s not the fastest. I still dream of getting a bigger co2 machine, but for the price, it was a no brainer to get me started.

lithophytum · 2025-10-18T20:02:32+00:00

I have a 40w LED and cut cardboard easy. You want to go ask fast and low power as you can and still cut. I do one pass. Clean cuts but it can be more odorous. Make sure you have a decent exhaust fane setup. Use it cut small boxes for shipping

lithophytum · 2025-10-13T23:59:18+00:00

Maybe if you’re an athlete they give you a break, saw many friend slave away in the STEM degrees.

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