This was a really interesting activity, we were able to use the Vynil cutter, Laser cutter and engraving machine and use our CAD and drawing learnings learn at previous activities.
Group assigments are always a goal to achieve, Although it was the first time we work together, I believe we understand each other very well. Each of the members
of the group are major in different areas such as: Design, Mechanic, Electronics, which is very valuable. It gives us more confidence to ask someone in order to get some help.
Our team members are:
The assignment consist of:
TECSUP Lab has these laser engraving machine. Some important things to consider prior the put it on operation.
As long as it is a laser equipment, special glasses are needed for its handling. It is a MUST to wear it.
The equipment consist on three phases:
It is very important because it extracts the emissions that the material releases after the laser cuts the material.
Our lab is implemented with a Purex filter. It acts like an air purificator, since it handles active carbon.
It is really importat that prior the operation of the laser machine, it should be power on. It is because it injects air
towards the material where the laser cuts and avoids the flame to increase. It also helps the the optical part of the lens
against the humidity. Our compressor is made by GAST
The first steps we have to learn was the installation of the lenses, we have to clean the mirror and its lens. Then the we have to configure the settings
Then we have to put the table on the correct position according to the thickness of the material. These can be done manually or auto. If we are going to use the manual configuration, we need to handle a triangle that comes with the equipment. Once it is touch the material, it means that the equipment is properly set.
Automatic way can be done by pressing the automatic button on the menu of the equipment. You may see more information about its characteristic fo the laser at Laser Epilog Legend 36EXT
Then it was time to put the material, we have tried to raster and cut with: acrylic and mdf.
We have seen that we can do some cuts of acrylic as low as 0.5 mm easily. The material can support it. However in order to do the press fit, once the piece it cut some light appears if we increase the power. The most optical settings were: Speed 20, Power 80, Frequency 5000.
MDF is more easy to handle different speed in comparison to acrylic, in this case we need to be more careful about the power. The piece may get burn if we do not put the proper settings. The most optimal settings for a 3 mm mdf piece were: Speed 22, Power 90, Frequency 5000.
We have done some interesting test in order to get the perfect press fit. However we have only work with mdf, because the Z axis stop to work at the printer. The best settings for press-fit is -0.225 mm.
For this activity the individual assigment are:
For these activity I have chosen a Nokia brand logo. I jut want to know how the vynil cutter works. I like how the vector path is show at the application. The SW also allows the possibility to change the size of the image and know the real size of it.
The idea was to cut the design on the laser machine, however it got broken the day I was on the lab. In the comming days I will be posting more information about it.
Once the machines had the proper maintenance I was able to proceed with the project. I designed it at Fusion. You may see the design and the final project implemented.
And the result is:
