Kerf-canceling mechanisms: Making laser-cut mechanisms operate across different laser cutters

Abstract

Getting laser-cut mechanisms, such as those in micro-scopes, robots, vehicles, etc., to work, requires all their components to be dimensioned precisely. This precision, however, tends to be lost when fabricating on a differ-ent laser cutter, as it is likely to remove more or less mate-rial (aka 'kerf'). We address this with what we call kerf-canceling mechanisms. Kerf-canceling mechanisms replace laser-cut bearings, sliders, gear pairs, etc. Unlike their tradi-tional counterparts, however, they keep working when manufactured on a different laser cutter and/or with different kerf. Kerf-canceling mechanisms achieve this by adding an additional wedge element per mechanism. We have created a software tool KerfCanceler that locates traditional mecha-nisms in cutting plans and replaces them with their kerf-canceling counterparts. We evaluated our tool by converting 17 models found online to kerf-invariant models; we evaluated kerf-canceling bearings by testing with kerf values ranging from 0mm and 0.5mm and find that they perform reliably independent of this kerf.