Cameron’s Laser Build

Engraving silicone Apple Watch bands

Okay so tonight was a new experiment with silicone. There is some guidance online relative to what settings to use but every laser is different, and you don’t always know how many watts someone has so when they say 40% power, you have to ask, 40% of what number. So we started at 40% or 40 watts because we have a 100 watt laser (though Cameron tells me he thinks it will go as high as 130 watts) and instead of following a vector path which would be tracing the lines of the design this image required that we use the raster mode which means the machine darts back and forth kind of like the old dot matrix printers (I know, I’m old, I get it) only WAY cooler! The engraving at 40 was okay but I thought we could do better so we went to 45 watts on the yellow and 50 watts on the pink. I like 50 for this modality; in person the engraving is quite defined while not decreasing the integrity of the watch band in any discernible way. Now I’m anxious to create my own bespoke designs; this one was purchased on Etsy. I love sunflowers so why reinvent the wheel when you can support a small business, right? Below I have a few videos and a still of tonight’s adventure!

Cutting the cardboard jig
Our first experience in raster mode.
Okay yeah, it’s working. Note to self…single layer corrugated cardboard for the next watch band jig.
So fun for a first go at silicone!

Diablo keeps me up at night; the ideas are coming at me with the force of an open fire hydrant. I wish we had more time; Cameron is humoring me but the truth is he really does need to complete the build. I just want to play and learn all the different cutting and engraving mediums to sate my creative wanderlust. He’s a good sport and an ace with software (I am NOT but want to learn LightBurn-I use Silhouette Designer Studio and Embird embroidery software with a fair amount of success but melt down when a new iteration of Safari/iOS comes out and they rearrange the icons and change colors…it’s not broken-LEAVE IT ALONE!) so he makes it all happen. Here is the still of the watch bands I promised. And just so you know, I have slate and I’m ready to rumble with it!

40 watts, 45 watts, and 50 watts. The 50 looks soooo good in person.

Happy Friday Eve everyone! I’m going to see what a home made vanilla bean brûlée gets me in the way of some laser action. Keep good thoughts for me!????

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  1. Debbie

    Bribing with brûlée, you are utterly shameless, lol! The terminology is WAY over my head, but I sure like the end result! The possibilities for this are endless!

    Reply
    1. Cameron’s Rezo Laser Build

      LOL! The stomach is the path to the heart! It’s also the path to elastic pants for me ????. In all sincerity, I’d love to understand where I lost you because my intention for this blog is two fold. One, to document the journey for Cameron because it’s a once in a lifetime endeavor, and two, to connect with my far flung friends (as well as those who live nearby) using language and images that explain what we are doing and sort of HOW we (Cameron) are doing it balancing the 30,000 foot level tech talk with colloquial language we all understand. As a non techie myself who has to have Cameron explain a lot of this as though he’s talking to a five year old I truly hope to leave people with a baseline understanding. As I write this I’m wondering if I should occasionally provide links to more thorough explanations of what folks are seeing if they want to know more, but it also sounds like I could do a better job of explaining too. I’d value your feedback ????.

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