Dobot Mooz Laser Etching Jig

thingiverse

I have a Dobot Mooz that I use primarily for laser etching. Don't look at me like that, okay? I didn't say I was proud of it, just that I had it. I did modify the laser myself if that helps to restore faith in any way. Anyway, while I was etching and cutting a bunch of stuff, I found out that I needed a positioning jig for consistency. So, I created this jig which bolts directly to the Mooz deck plate. The holes line up perfectly with the top and bottom row of mounting holes on the plate. The bottom holes are oval in the Y direction to give you some forgiveness for slop. The width is exactly the same as the plate's width, making alignment while mounting it quite easy. The lip is 8mm high and the bottom is 2mm, so you have plenty of vertical room to put sacrificial material on top and still load your stock. One cool little feature you might be able to use elsewhere is a small indentation I added to the design right at the 0,0 point as a guide to set the XY zero point (check out the detail photo). The indentation is just a small divot with a cone in the middle and a flat top. When you're setting the XY, the dip gives you a nice visual indicator that you're on target (bright bright bright...dip...bright bright bright) on each axis. It's hard to describe until you try it, but once you do, you'll say, "Hey, that works." After that, you'll have a nice zero point at the exact lower-left corner, which matches nicely with LaserWeb. After that, you can jam your stock against the left and bottom walls, and you'll be square and true. Unfortunately, if you already have a Mooz, you'll need to print this on something other than a Mooz because the Mooz bed isn't big enough. Sorry about that. You could always throw this design into Tinkercad and slice it into quarters, then glue them together. You can use this as a good base for your own custom production jigs as well. Just throw it into Tinkercad and add supports or stops where you need 'em. With the zero point marker and how it fastens to the bed, it'll give you very consistent results if you're frequently switching between items. Just change the jig each time you switch to a new item, and you're golden.