Week 7: Computer-Controlled Machining
Assignment(s) for this week
-
Group Assignment:
- do your lab's safety training
- test runout, alignment, fixturing, speeds, feeds, materials, and toolpaths for your machine Individual Assignment
- make (design+mill+assemble) something big (~meter-scale)
- extra credit: don't use fasteners or glue
- extra credit: include curved surfaces
For this weeks Group page, please refer to this website here.
Designing my object was a bit of a pain because I needed very percise measurements of my houses drawer so the utensil organizer could fit snugly inside (spoiler alert: it didn't fit initally...). I started out by making a sketch with the dimentions of the base of the drawer, I then added the area where the planks of wood would be and dividers.
After I finished the sketch, I then extruded the sketch to the height to the given wood thickness. I then used the Project tool in Fusion to prepare the individual pieces of wood to input on Adobe Illustrator.
Toolpath creation in Vcarve
Using the Axiom Iconic CNC Machine with the software VCarve to auto generate toolpaths based on my Illustrator file.
To create the toolpath, the process went roughly as follows:
1: Import files into Vcarve, we used .dxf files.
2: Set the thickness of your material in material setup
3: Select the profiles of your sketch and add appropriate toolpaths.
- We used a profile toolpath to cut out the shape. I added tabs in a few places to hold the work in place. Tabs can be added by checking [Add Tabs to Toolpath], and then clicking on the vector lines where you wish to add tabs.
4: Make sure to order the toolpaths such that the ones that remove the most structural stability occur last.
5: You can preview the cut with a button in the toolpath ordering sidebar. This will animate a simulation of the router following the toolpath. If the preview looks right, you can export the job and move it to the router.
Problems...
Remember when I said I took percise measurements of the drawer so it would slide it well? Well that didn't go as planned because I either measured correctly and the CNC made a small error or I did not account for the screws that were holding the physical cabinet together. I had to carve that out painfully with a drill and sandpaper and eventually it fit well.
Final pictures!
