Week 3

Vinyl plotter

Today I learned how to make a sticker from a vectorized photo on Inkscape.
Specifically, the steps were these:
1. After saving the chosen image (a lotus flower), I imported it into the Inkscape program by clicking on "file", "import" and choosing the photo just downloaded;
2.I clicked on the image to select it and placed it on the work sheet (the rectangle);
3. To vectorize the image I selected the "path" tool (the sixth in the horizontal toolbar) and "trace bitmap" (third option), then another window appeared with the image and under the "update" button I clicked on before clicking "ok".

4. Once I closed that window, in my work page the vector image overlapped the original one. So I moved the vector to the right and deleted the other one.

5. The next step was to resize the worksheet to my image. I then selected "edit" (second tool in the horizontal toolbar) and then "resize page to selection" (at the bottom of the column of possible options with edit).
6. At this point my image was ready to be saved with a simple "save as" and selecting "Cairo png" as an extension.
7. Once I opened the "CutStudio" program, I imported the image by selecting "file", "import", selected the image, right-clicked it, and selected "image profile". Another tab appeared where I pressed the "extract contour line" button and then "ok".

Also in this case the image I wanted overlapped the other, so I moved it to the right and deleted the first one. I selected the image "with contour lines only" and then pressed on "cut" and on "ok".

8. At this point I was ready to insert the paper into the plotter!

When the lever is back I can insert the paper. It is important that the "wheels" are exactly above the white rectangles. I then pulled the lever forward and pressed "enter" with the "select sheet roll" setting.

9. The plotter carved my lotus flower and I removed the adhesive filler part.
10. Finally, after having affixed an adhesive sheet on it, I rubbed a little bit to make the two parts stick together before separating them.

As expected, the outline of my lotus flower remained in the adhesive part. I then glued it into the cover of a notebook and detached the adhesive sheet. The contour lines remained in the sheet (material not indicated!!!).

I tried to do something harder. A friend of mine likes stickers and street art a lot, so I decided to reproduce a work by her favorite artist. There was a wall in the background, which would have been quite complicated for the plotter, so I erased it with the eraser tool on gimp.

Parametric kit

In order to carry out this task I discovered a very precious function of Onshape, namely the variable! It is inserted when exiting the sketch mode and is extremely convenient because if you change a dimension it will be enough to do it only once. Moreover, to make the pieces fit together properly I added and removed the value corresponding to the kerf (the material that is removed by the laser cutter during the cutting). The group work showed it to be 0.1 mm.