Computer Controlled Cutting

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Objective

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.

Introduction

Tools and machines

A tool is a device or implement, especially one held in the hand, used to carry out a particular function. – Oxford Languages.

Eg:- Knife, Chisel

A machine is an apparatus using mechanical power and having several parts, each with a definite function and together performing a particular task. – Oxford Languages.
Eg:- Coffee maker

Both a tool and a machine are designed for a specific purpose and make the jobs easier to perform.
Eg:- Knife – Used to cut things.

Sewing Machine – Used to stitch clothes.
In this week we were given a brief introduction on Lasercutter, Vinylcutter, Knifes. We were encouraged to build a construction kit using different joints. The materials that could be used are given below.

  • Cardboard
    MDF
    Acrylic
    Plywood
  • Different types of joints

  • Press-fit
    Chamfer
    Snap-fit
    Flexure
    Pinned
    Finger
    Snap
    Wedge
  • The image below shows the different kinds of joints.
    different joints

    source - fabacademy

    Lasercutter

    “LASER”- Light Amplification by the Stimulated Emission of Radiation. Lasers are used in a variety of applications and fields like medical surgeries, weaponries, guiding systems etc.

    They are of various types

    Gas Laser
    Fibre Laser
    Solid-State Laser
    Liquid Laser Etc. Laser are also used achieve pin-point accuracy.

    It consists of mainly three parts.
    Gain-medium
    Power source
    Optical lens

    The laser cutter that we used was a CO2 laser which is categorised into gas lasers Listed below are its specifications.

    Axis - 3 axis
    Power – 80 W
    Focus -8 mm
    Speed- 300 mm/s

    different joints

    source - Internet

    Gain-medium

    It is the medium used to excite electrons to a higher state of charge that has to generate a beams of laser

    Power Source

    They provide external source of energy which is used to excite the gain medium.

    Optical Lens

    These are special lens used for focusing or concentrating the beam created to cut or scan the required material.

    different parts
    parts contd

    Softwares Used

    Safety Instructions

    Construction Kit

    For this weeks assignment I had to design a construction kit and for that I first tried to search over the internet what people have done.
    I even had took a peak at my fellow classmates who were doing something of their own. I was not a creative guys so I thought of keeping the construction kit made up of simple shapesbr First I tried out Four shpars evnetually that failed then I went with only two. A square and a circle this allowed me to build something of a sorts cirles could act as wheels and bases and squares could act as a structure.
    Then I chose is sizes arbitarily through trial and error through my failures I learnt that a there is no perfect size and its the perception of our thinking that appreciates it.
    In my failure section I have some photos of a triangle, square etc. There I was able to find out that the size of the shapes or building block could tbe smaller this means that we could save cardboard by altering the size to few millimeters.
    Through my success I intend to show that a press-fit construction if done perfectly could give a nice build.

    parts contd

    Designing in Fusion 360


    Parametric Design


    Parametric design is just used to make a design alot more dynamic. It is one of those key feature in CAD / CAM softwares that enables designer,architects,engineers to build 3D model very easily.
    Parametric design simply means that instead of some arbitary value to be set on a design we are going to assign different parameters eg:- Thickness, Height, Width etc.
    In Fusion 360 its very easy to set paramentric design fuctions. We could define a function and give in some values later these values could change over time to adjust the design.
    To set parametric values in fusion goto the Modify tab at the toolbar and click Change parameters.
    You could set different parameters like length, kerf, thickness etc.
    The most important use this feature is in CNC machining where the thickness of a material decides the slot height.
    Example :- Thickness of Plywood even though the rated thickness of plywood is 12mm it could range from 10.5mm to 12.5mm to account for this thickness we use parameteric design. These could be defined as parameters and then be given as arbitary value.
    Eventually the design also adjusts according to the changes values.

    parameters
    Kerf

    It is the material removed by the cutting tool.
    The image below also shows the kerf set in the design.

    pd

    Failures

    The Cardboard was uneven in thickness but couldn't get the press fits right.
    Below is an image showing a press fit of different shapes with slot measurements in paramentric design.

    Success

    Finally I built a construction kit It was very small and two shapes this configuration gave me a bit of ease while cutting the cardboard since I had to only cut out two shapes with multi quantities.
    So Using the construction kit I created a bike that resembles a space pod from the tron series.
    The image shows a prper press-fit construction of my work that is.

    Below You can see the in the image of a bike from tron series.
    bike
    Later I created a directional arrow sign so that it could be used to point to something.
    arrow
    Some other pictures of the construction kit.
    tron.

    Vinyl Cutter

    A machine which is used to cut vinyl paper into different shapes or pieces is known as a vinyl cutter.
    Roland is one of the manufacturer of vinyl cutter. At our lab the Roland CAMM-1 CX24 is used to cut vinyl to create different types of stickers.
    It has many different parts that didn’t capture my attention so I’ll be inserting a manual of the same.

    Vinyl Cutter

    The user mannual is given below. Please note that the lab has an older version of the Vinyl Cutter but we are using the mannual of the latest one since its backwards compatible.
    specA page of the User mannual of the vinyl cutter.

    The link to download the user mannual is here.


    Cutting Something on Vinyl Cutter

    As the part of the assignment we were asked to cut something on a vinyl cutter. I decided to make a custom sticker for my laptop cover in the process. It was fun! and eventually learnt how to use the cutter correctly and got a brief walkthrough of mods also.

    BWM image
    To create this sticker first I opened Inkscape and created a design as shown below.
    different joints

    I will be linking the tutorial for creating this design to the previous week for accessing that do checkout here.
    Open Mods (which was was installed in Ubuntu)
    mods

    Choose the png Image in “Read PNG”
    Then click “calculate” at the top.
    The open the teminal and use $dmesg command to check the usb driver for the Vinyl cutter.
    Enter the USB driver name into the web socket section check the socket address.
    And click send to printer.
    The design will be cut if the vinyl cutting machine is set.
    different joints w-50% h-50%

    Group Assignment

    In this weeks group assignment we were divided into different groups and performed laser cutting using acrylic
    Click this link to check the group assignment page.

    Design Files

    Click here to download the design files

    Creative Commons License
    Fabspace by Devesh S Nair is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.