| Computer-Controlled Cutting |
This week we developed a joint project just to learn about work with the Vinyl Cutter and Laser Cutter.
I used Parametric CAD tools to obtain the vectorial drawings needed for cutting vinyl and for cutting wood and acrylic stuff.
The small wooden box with acrylic doors will be assembly without adding any other materials.
I had some problems to assembly wood with acrylic material because the non constant thickness of the wood.
The parts were drawn with Autodesk INVENTOR to simulate the assembly with all of links and joints (very good tool to test this tasks). It is possible to test volume interference between parts, for instance.
I test the press-fit of door handle with great results, have simulated it previously in parametric CAD.
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After that, generate the fabrication drawings, that are the orthogonal projection of the 3D model that means to the laser cutter (also very easy at this step). These files were saved in dwg format with precision dimensions.
This video shows how the parts should be assembly together.
At this point, we had to install the Fab Modules, although, didn't use any of them to cutting the acrylic and wood, we used the Corel Draw Graphics (and vectorial 2d models) to send data to the Epilog laser.
Installing Fab Modules (Ubuntu):
Download from:
http://kokompe.cba.mit.edu/downloads.html
All Modules
Download
Dependencies: Ubuntu 10.04
Python
wxPython
NumPy
PyOpenGL
GCC and G++
libpng
Make
BASH
Okular
Boost (headers, thread, and system library)
cmake
To install these dependencies, type in ubuntu terminal:
sudo apt-get install python python-wxgtk2.8 python-dev python-pip gcc g++ libpng12-dev make bash okular libboost-thread-dev libboost-system-dev cmake
and,
sudo pip install PyOpenGL PyOpenGL_accelerate numpy
Compiling
To compile, after downloading the source above:
unzip fab_src.zip and change directory (type cd following by folder name) to the folder it's in.
Type: make fab
(to compile the executables and copy scripts into bin folder).
At this point,
Type: make install
(to copy all executables and scripts to /usr/local/bin).
From now on, we open the ubuntu terminal and simple type: fab
Ready to use Fab modules.
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