3. Computer-Controlled Cutting¶
Group assignment:¶
- Characterize your lasercutter’s focus, power, speed, rate, kerf, and joint clearance and types
- Document your work to the group work page and reflect on your individual page what you learned
Individual assignments:¶
- Design, lasercut, and document a parametric press-fit construction kit, which can be assembled in multiple ways. Account for the lasercutter kerf.
- Cut something on the vinylcutter
Learning outcomes
- Demonstrate and describe parametric 2D modelling processes
- Identify and explain processes involved in using the laser cutter.
- Develop, evaluate and construct the parametric construction kit
- Identify and explain processes involved in using the vinyl cutter.
Minecraft Architecture Construction Kit¶
I was inspired on the ride home from Fablab Taipei seeing a construction site for a tall building on the side of the road. I thought to myself, steel girders are so cool and useful! So for my parametric design press-fit construction kit assignment this week I wanted to make an architecture project.
The end goal is to have modular blocks that can be assembled into the Sears Tower in Chicago (now called Willis Tower, I know) or any other blocky building shape that one would like! Think minecraft voxels but IRL, that can be assembled like LEGOs.
The design revolves around these two main basic pieces, a wall module and a floor/ceiling module. They are what I describe as the “1x1 unit” pieces.
The dimensions are defined by parameters as much as possible and take into account kerf loss from the laser cutter and also the exact measured thickness (ply) of what material is being used.
Here are the user input parameters. Note that ply and kerf must be updated specific to one’s laser cutter machine and material!
Now to cutting! Export the sketches as DXF, then open in Adobe Illustrator, then “print” to the laser cutter CAM. Make sure the lines that are to be cut are vector paths with a thickness of 0.01 pt or below.
Assembling the first time! Successful test, but a little loose. Adjusted kerf in model and recut for tighter press-fit.
It’s a cubic unit, NOT a box.
Spiral 1: Kit can be assembled upwards in one dimension.
Total height dimension is almost perfectly accurate meaning kerf calculations were pretty good!
Fusion 360 determines the dimensions of wall and floor modules’ finger tabs and inserts based on user input parameters. With the 1x1 module set, additional construction pieces can be made by combining into 2x1, 1x2, 2x2, 3x3, etc!
This can be done as a new sketch in Fusion 360 with parameters linked, but since the sketches have to be exported to DXF anyways, it’s easier to take the set unit modules and work in Illustrator for the additional construction pieces. The operation “Path > Exclusion” easily removes cut lines in the middle of the combined module piece where we now don’t want to cut.
Spiral 2: build out horizontal connectors!
Test build of a step-like building.
Testing capability of 2x1 connectors to support horizontal expansion.
It works! Anything you can build in Minecraft you can build with these blocks! (As long as they’re not floating in mid-air)
Now for the grand challenge, building a scale model of the Sears Tower!
First, lots and lots of cutting…
Assembly Video¶
Final Overview Video¶
Future Considerations¶
There are lots of block-based architecture examples around the world, more that can be modeled with this construction kit. Perhaps this kit can even be used by architects to rapidly model future building ideas as well!
Reference: Antilia (building), Mumbai, India
Vinyl Cutting Motorcycle Club Decal¶
Our vinyl cutter is a Graphtec CE6000-60.
First step, install Inkcut (open source CAM plug-in for Inkscape) and connect our vinyl cutter to it as a printer.
SVG from last week’s assignment loaded and cutting toolpath shown.
*Note: unfortunately, after very, very lengthy troubleshooting, I could not get the Graphtec cutter to connect to my laptop and Inkcut. Therefore, in the name of agile I borrowed my classmate’s computer with Adobe Illustrator and the Graphtec plug-in that already worked. This set up worked much smoother, guess open source has some limitations sometimes…
Loaded a sheet of vinyl between the rollers, move them by hand to spots marked with blue stickers and then release the hold latch in the back. Now hit start cutting!
Exacto knife and tweezers for extracting the negative space vinyl. This process is known as “weeding”.
Some cuts from the vinyl cutter were not great, didn’t go all the way through and so required some pulling/cutting manually. Need to adjust the vinyl cutter settings for more force in the next cut.
All negative removed, and areas I was not satisfied with vinyl cutter are marked in red circles below:
Finally, apply transfer tape over the entire surface, push down hard with rollers or credit card (like installing a screen protector on a phone), and then cut out the perimeter and ready to go apply!
Applying decal on my motorcycle. Sheering away the transfer tape is better than pulling straight up.
Final result! The decal is a little big for my liking… but can always redo!
Design Files¶
Parametric Construction Kit Assignment
The following are the AI files I used for my kit specific to my laser cutter machine kerf and material thickness. Provided here as an example only. Remake your own from the parametrically defined Fusion 360 model above ^ before you cut yours! - Kit 1x1 Floor - Kit 1x1 Wall - Kit 2x1 Floor - Kit 3x1 Floor - Kit 3x1 Wall - Kit 3x3 Floor A - Kit 3x3 Floor B - Kit 3x3 Floor C
Vinyl Cutting Assignment - Vinyl Cut - SVG file of GCMC motorcycle logo
