4. Computer controlled cutting¶

Week 03 / Feb 09¶

Subtractive Methods:

This week’s assignment:¶

group assignment:¶

characterize your lasercutter’s focus, power, speed, rate, kerf, joint clearance and types

individual assignment:¶

cut something on the vinylcutter
design, lasercut, and document a parametric construction kit, accounting for the lasercutter kerf, which can be assembled in multiple ways, and for extra credit include elements that aren’t flat

Laser Cutting:¶

For this week I developed a geodesic lamp/dome. I am a great fan of Buckminster Fuller, and developing the lamp was a lot of fun. I used the amazing work of David Selles as a starting point, and then adapted it to materials available at our Lab, and the kerf of our laser cutter.

I redraw the pieces on Rhino. I need to do one more modeling iteration of all the pieces on Fusion, in order to have a fully parameterized version, adaptable to different materials.

See images and video bellow:

Laser Cutting File here

Laser Cutting Update / Parametric construction Kit on Fusion¶

Based on the Rhino files, I developed a parametric construction kit on Fusion, accounting for the laser cutter kerf. The parameters I created are:

Press Fit= Thickness - Kerf Thickness and Kerf

Parametric Construction Kit on Fusion

You can update either material thickness - according to material - or the Kerf - according to your laser cutter - , and the geometry of all the 9 pieces used for assembling the dome update automatically.

Please see images and video bellow:

The VERY VERY VERY Last minute Beetle_Bot Project¶

A geodesic dome is a very specific geometry. Still, you can use the basic building blocks as units of a multipurpose construction kit. Please behold Beetle_Bot.

Vinyl cutting:¶

For this week I developed the files and learned to use the vinyl cutter. I developed a second iteration of the logo for my final project.

The Vinyl Cutter that we have in our lab is a GCC Puma IV 60 LX. I used Inkscape for developing the logo. I exported the drawing from Inkscape, as a DXF format. Then I imported the file to the Vinyl Cutting Software (GreatCut 4) and set the following parameters:

Speed: 30 cm/s
Pressure: 120 g

Exporting to DXF