Machine Design
For this week assignment, we had to automate a machine and document the group project and the individual contribution as well.
We had a very interesting introduction with Nadya Peek about machines that make machine. Here is the PDF showing the topics we had to covered for this week.
The Team
Pizza Cutter
We got the cardboard stages from MIT, to make our own machine. Here is manual showing how it works. We had to use these cardboard stages to make any machine as shown on the site. Our main idea was to make a paint machine but after few discussions we decided to make a more challenging yet fun machine : a pizza cutter. We had to built it from scratch without using the stages. It was a bit more complicated for us to figure out how to make it work and design it as we have no idea about machines.
The procedure
A big big Thank you for our Gurus Ferdinand meier and Santi Fuentemilla for all the help, We couldn't accomplished the assignment without their help.
We 3d designed the machine using the software SolidWorks creating parts and assembling them.Here is the result:
Control System
We have two systems for this machine :
Application and Interfaces
We used all the other machines that were introduce to us during the Fab Academy:
Electronics
Milena did a great job with the electronics, she was in charge of the milling and soldering of the FabNet board and adding the FTDI usb cable so we can connect it to the Gesalt that we received from MIT.
We are using a 12v power supply so we didn't need to solder another 2x2 pin header
Assembly
Once we laser cutted, printed and milled all the pieces that we needed we started by assembling the machine.All the materials were actually recycled: Here is the list of the materials that we used.Programming
One of our problems was that we had to program the two motors accordingly and not separatly. This was the most difficult part for us. We had a lot of issues trying to programing this machine. We needed the plate to rotate slowly doing an angle of 90 degrees and the rod to turn faster separatly moving the box with the blade back and forth to the original position. We used the phyton file from Neil but of course had to change it a bit.To see the video of the pizza cutter working please check out my colleagues webpage, I was not able to download it on my webpage.Bu the machine is working.
You can find the files here : Machine Design Files
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