This week purpose is to get familiarized with the usage of CNC router machine in your Fab Lab which eventually will open a sea of possibilities for projects that you can make.
The idea is to make beside table to put my mobile while it's charging, glasses, and my wallet. I needed a standard dimension beside table as I need to use it while I am sleeping on my bed. I started by browsing the opendesk website and choose a beside table suitable for taking the general design concept and the outer dimensions (450mm(L)*405mm(H)*450mm(W)), so I decided to to download the design (.dxf)
Then I started drawing my design parametrically using SolidWorks with reference from the (.dxf) file for the dimension.
The only difference between designing something to be cut on a laser cutter for example and the CNC router is that cnc router end mill have a non-negligible with (For Example, my end mill is 6mm diameter)
If you didn't use dogbone this will happen: (on the left)
you have to do it anything like this to fit like shown:
and to save effort on myself while designing I made something called the solid works block
which's something could be resized or copied and pasted several times in the sketch or other solid works you might design in the future.
After finishing the design and Assembly you have to export each part as a (.dxf) file and you can refer to the Computer Controlled Cutting week under the Laser cutting part.
After having the (.dxf) files we use a software called ArtCam (9 is the version I'm using) to generate the toolpath for the CNC Router:
In the previous steps I have exported the (.cnc), but when we put the file on the device connected to the machine we need another software to translate the (.cnc) file into motion for the 3 axis (a CAM software).
We use NC Studio to control the The CNC router we used the Lab, data about it could be found here, but briefly the technical specification of it are:
I'll explain briefly what are the essential controls you'll need while working with NC Studio:
First you have to load your file: File Menu ----> Open and Load (Ctrl+O)
First of all the machine bed should have what's called sacrificial layer/sheet which's a layer above the metal sheet.
Secondly, you fix your desired to be cut sheet over it with screws all over the edges to make sure the sheet won't move from the vibrations or the spindle while cutting.
I hammerd the parts as an extra measure to ensure the're fixed together properly and used sand paper to chamfer any edges I felt the're a bit sharp.