Jonathan Bowen
New Member
So I own a laser cutter and have an opportunity to buy a vacuform machine for cheap. I don't have room in the shop but I'm thinking about trying to make it work. The issue is this would be used for production level work. Made to create custom box inserts for board games or trays for holding gaming components during play. I'm already over worked dealing with another production issue that is taking all my time now that volume kicked in. I'm stuck at a junction were I can't afford the machines to make it or to outsource it without massive numbers that are a bit out of reach. So I tend to plan things out a lot before I leap now a days.
Are there techniques for quickly cutting out vacformed pieces with precision? This will be a production setup so it will be timed rather tight and I'll be doing several parts per pull. The bed on the machine is 2' by 4' so I figure I'll have several parts in each pull that will need to be removed. Either that or I'll build an adapter plate to shrink the size to something manageable when needed. I've considered transferring it to the laser cut I don't have a good enough fence in the other machine to justify it. I'll never get it to line up with correct tolerances.
Anyone have experience with this? I'm hoping to keep trimming time to less then 1 min per sheet with about 4 items on it.
Are there techniques for quickly cutting out vacformed pieces with precision? This will be a production setup so it will be timed rather tight and I'll be doing several parts per pull. The bed on the machine is 2' by 4' so I figure I'll have several parts in each pull that will need to be removed. Either that or I'll build an adapter plate to shrink the size to something manageable when needed. I've considered transferring it to the laser cut I don't have a good enough fence in the other machine to justify it. I'll never get it to line up with correct tolerances.
Anyone have experience with this? I'm hoping to keep trimming time to less then 1 min per sheet with about 4 items on it.