pamela chami

week16

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

Mariona Aloy Ciller

Alessandra Ferreira

Milena Orlandini

Josefina Petrini

Kalil Ventura

Myself

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 started by brainstorming about the design and the mechanism of the machine by following this pyramid scheme about making machines that make

Then we divided the tasks: structure, mechanism, boards , programing

We all kind of work together on all the tasks but mainly I focused to work on the structure design, the 3d module, the mechanism, the material and the assembly.

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 :

Linear movement: X axe with a steppermotor to move the blade cutter

Rotational movement: rotational axe with a steppermotor to rotate the pizza plate

Application and Interfaces

We used all the other machines that were introduce to us during the Fab Academy:

3d print parts for the mechanism

Laser cut the gears and the structure

Milling using the shopbot the base of the structure and some pieces from the connections

Milling the boards with the Roland milling machine

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.

x2 recycled steppers

x1 Threaded rod (700 mm long)

Small gear and bigger gear out of acrylic

3d printed flexible coupler

Metal L angle (4x)

Metal rail (2x)

Wood sides (2x 600x300mm)

Wood platform(600x600mm)

Wood base (2x 45x45x565mm)

Laser cut acrylic wheels

Spring

Bearings

3d printed box to receive the pizza blade

Screws, nuts and washers (diferents sizes)

and the pizza blade

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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