WEEK 15& 16
Mechanical Design & Machine Week
Equipment
- Hardware: Shopbot, LaserCutter, Creatable 3dPrinter
- Software: Lasercut, Fusion360, VCarve, Cura
- Material: Rods from old 3d printer, plywood, acrylic
Prototyping
Our group decided upon making a vending machine for machine week. For the eletronics part, we would need to build a 3 axis motor system, an LCD monitor and button selector. The mechnical & hardware components would consist of a segmented shelving unit with coils to push the items out, a case for the machine, and the elevator system that would house the motors. My task was designing the case in Fusion, fabrication of components in the CNC and helping to assemble the machine.To start, we disassembled an old 3d printer in the lab to repurpose material. From the machines we were able use the rods that the motors could slide along. In our first prototype the mechanics were based on a design by How to Mechatronics DIY Vending Machine .
Prototype 1
This design seemed a bit shaky for the proportions of our machine, so we opted for creating a stable base and having a single rod stemming from the center to carry up the motor along the vertical axis.
Prototype 2
For the design of pushing content of the compartments out, we made coils with fixed backs that the motor could attach to and initiate rotation. The fixture initially had a small square shape hole with a male head attached to the end of the motor that it could fit into.
This design required a very high degree of precision for the motor to fit into the back of the coil. We wanted to allow some room for deviation so we reworked a second prototype that had larger target and where the motorhead would have some guidance into its male counterpart. In our second design, the motor was headed with a larger mushroom cap with teeth that would lock on to the receiving cup.
3d Printed gears
Building Process
CNC
Assembly
