Computer controlled cutting¶

This week I will use different 2d and 3d modeling software and compare the way I use them and the result I get

Assignments¶

Group assignment:

Characterize your lasercutter's focus, power, speed, rate, kerf, joint clearance and types.

Individual assignment:

Cut something on the vinylcutter.
Cut design, lasercut, and document a parametric construction kit, accounting for the lasercutter kerf, which can be assembled in multiple ways.
Extra credit: Include elements that aren't flat.

Group assignment¶

Group assignment page¶

In the following link you can access the Leon Fab Lab page that contains all the group assignments: Fab Lab Leon group assignment page

Maintenance of the laser cutter and organization of the machines¶

Before starting my weekly homework I wanted to do some maintenance on my fablab’s laser cutter, there were some dirty parts and I also wanted to change some things. My laser machine is a Perez Camps, it is a company from Barcelona that buys laser machines in China and modifies them to later sell them in Spain, this is the laser from my Fab Lab, I don’t know if it is very good or very bad because I have never used it another laser cutter, I can tell you is that it works correctly.

The first thing I did was move all the machines to clean the place where they were because it was quite dirty.

Before starting my Fab’s laser cutting set consists of the following external machines:

Laser cutter (obviously)
Air compressor
Fume extractor
Liquid cooler

Each of these machines are independent.

I started by opening the covers of the laser cutter and the cooler to blow out all the dust and clean the machines inside as much as possible.

Then I verified that the coolant in the cooler had lost its color, I did not know the last time it was changed, I decided to drain the system and fill it with new coolant.

As all the machines were disassembled, I cleaned the fume extractor tube, which had a lot of dirt inside.

Then we align the mirrors of the laser cutter.

After aligning the mirrors I repaired a couple of damaged head wires and cleaned all the parts.

When I disassembled the head I saw the laser lens, it was dirty and burned so I decided to change it for a new one.

Then calibrate the focus of the lens.

I did not like about the set of laser machines is that each one of the machines was independent of the rest. So it was easy to forget to turn on one of the machines and cause an accident, this is what I wanted to change in addition to the maintenance of the laser.

Now all the machines are turned on with a single key and you can’t leave one turned off.

Cutting parameters¶

In the Fab Lab we have created a table of parameters in Excel with the parameters of the different materials that we cut, every time we cut a new material in the Fab we do power and speed tests to obtain the optimal parameters.

Our cutter has a cutting software, this software can import .dxf files, the best file to import is .dxf 2010 because it is the least troublesome.

I started trying to cut a series of patterns to make material more flexible, you can found it on Instructables.

Kerf & material parameters¶

After cutting the flexible patterns, I did several tests to obtain the value of the kerf in different materials.

Individual assignment¶

Parametric design¶

With the value of the kerf in different materials, I proceeded to make a parametric design of a “puzzle” in Fusion 360. I made a triangle, a square and a circle with indentations, all the values are parameterized and can be modified from the table.

In the table you can change the size of the polygons and their thickness depending on the material you have, you also have to enter the value of the kerf after doing the tests and the holes of the pieces adapt automatically.

With this design modifying the parameters of the table the forms change according to the values of the table.

Then I cut them out of cardboard on the laser cutter to test that it worked.

Then I made this “sculpture” with several polygons fitted together

Vinylcutter¶

When I finished with the laser cutter, I moved on to the vinyl cutter. On the vinyl cutter, I wanted to make a sign witch indicate to the users of the laser machine that they should supervise the cut until it was finished.

The vinyl cutter in our Fab Lab is a Roland that works with an Illustrator plugin.