It is already December 1st, and time for a new Advent Calendar. This year the design includes birch plywood with PMMA, SK6812 RGBW LEDs running with a Raspberry Pi Pico board, building a small village.

It is already December 1st, and time for a new Advent Calendar. This year the design includes birch plywood with PMMA, SK6812 RGBW LEDs running with a Raspberry Pi Pico board, building a small village.
Tomorrow is the 1st Advent, and right on time I was able to finish a special version of an Advent calendar for the Christmas 2020:
Having access to a laser cutter makes it possible to design custom enclosures. This one is for a Raspberry Pi in a Steampunk design:
For this Christmas time I wanted to create a special gift box for a special neighbor family.
Need a quick way how to attach a LED, a push button and two resistors to the Raspberry Pi header? One way is to use some ‘flying’ wires. Or to use three pieces of lasercut plywood for a nice looking Raspy extension board:
I love my laser cutter because it makes it easy to create nice wood boxes:
I have been asked to share what I’m creating with the laser cutter. So here is one more design: a wooden chest box:
The question has been: If I buy such a 50 Watt cheap laser cutter from China, how many Watts does it really have? I have read all these stories that usually what is advertised is only the theoretical maximum I could get, and will not be realistic at all. This article is about how I tuned the machine and how much I got out of it.