Assignments

Group assignment

Laser cutting :characterize your lasercutter, making lasercutter test part(s), making test part(s) that vary cutting settings and dimensions

Individual assignment

cut something on the vinylcutter

design, lasercut, and document a parametric press-fit construction kit,accounting for the lasercutter kerf, which can be assembled in multiple ways

Summary of the week

I found that I like laser cutting a lot, I can design something and make it straight away. Though to achive well function part is hard.

Laser Cutting

I wanted to make some blocks for the kids , hopefully it can both good in small size and big size. So I tested my idea with the Lasermaker software.

At first, I measured the cardboard with the vernier caliper .

In order to cut and connect, I made the slit wider than 2.94mm and I make the longer slit as 3.10mm. Then I download the file to the laser cutter to cut.

Before cutting , I set the laser cutter , adjust the laser focal distance, simulated the cutting process, and set the original point, click the frame button to see if the frame is in the scope of the piece of cardboard.

Testing the fit-in part

I tested the fit-in parts to see if the pieces is good to use.

The structure is good to use but the cutting edge is so burned that black my hands.

The light cube

Then I wanna to cut something with the wooden board, I had a wireless transmission module, so I designed a light cube.

w4_lightcube_test from Lingyu Yue on Vimeo.

2D design for my final project

I didn't do the documentation work well this year, I left the record way back from my project work, so I wrote my ducuments just before the deadline. For my final project, I made a calendar and a canlendar base.

First, I designed the canlendar part. I like the flip calendar a lot. Laser Cut Perpetual Flip Calendar I get my initial idea from this website to make a flip calendar.

And I figure out how to design the flip part from this youtube video DIY Endless Calendar from Wood I knew that I could make several wood blocks with a part to divide them.

So I draw 15 wood blocks and test to cut, before assemble the calendar, I polish and wax the wood blocks.

Then I found a nice frame for the blocks, better than the cube one. It's the perpetual calendar from eureka kit. So I made a frame as below: Eureka Crate Review + Coupon – February 2019

For the frame part, I tried several times, first time , I followed the eureka's design, use two parts in different directions to hold the vertical pieces. But I didn't realize that, the flip part can't go through the horizontal parts with the simple rectangle shapes.

Then I redraw the frame with curves on the left, it worked.

For the step motor part, at first, I measure the motor and roughly draw the outline. Then is came up to me that I could use the 28BYJ-48-dimensions to outline the sketch.

For connect the motor axle and the wood stick, I thought of making a 3D printing part ar first and I downloaded the step motor's axle connector 3D file. Then my coworker Yuanhan told me , we could simply design a laser cutter axle connector. So I draw 3 circles with holes which one of them fit the wood stick and one of them fit the motor axle, and I use two holes to connect them together.

For the final assemble, I used two with wood stick holes and one with step motor axle hole.

For the base to hold the elctronics part, I use Makercase website to design a box and then draw the port for my usb and button.

Now I finished my final design 2D part.

I drew some parts and cut them , but I didn't notice the measurement at first.So I failed a lot. And if you design something in inkscape and then save as dxf format, don't forget to choose the right measurement, mine is mm. If not, when it goes to laser cut, will be totally trouble.

Vinyl Cutting

There is a GCC I-craft vinyl cutter at MG .

For setting up the vinyl cutter, I:

• placed the cutting mat in the chosen direction and press the start rolling button
• inserted vinyl from the front side of the machine and placed its edge to the left side of the machine (zero)

I used the Sure cut a lot to open the icon file I made in week 3.

For cutting the icon file, I:

• set new project , set name/ mat size / orientation /units
• set the zero point
• import the png file (this png file contais all vectors)
• cut settings, set the preset / holder /blade offset / pressure / speed

The picture documentation is as below :