Computer-Controlled Machining

March 10, 2024

Challenge

Group assignment:
- Complete your lab’s safety training.
- Test runout, alignment, fixturing, speeds, feeds, materials and toolpaths for your machine.
- Document your work to the group work page and reflect on your individual page what you learned.
Individual assignment:
- Make (design+mill+assemble) something big.😅

Group Assignment:

This Week Assignment Was a bit overwhelming not because it’s hard (Very simple) but it takes time and there is no space for mistakes {It cost money and some time life} (So it was stressful). Never the less we are dealing with a great machine this week (Shop-Bot) it has great capabilities and wide range of support.

This week I have tested the quality of cut the machine can provide over different (speed and feed) options in addition to testing the alignment of the machine, and the most important thing while dealing with such machine type (Safety).

For more information refer to this Link.

Group

Individual Assignment

I have to build something big –> I can build any thing but it has to be useful this what was in my mind, I thought of designing things related to plants (Like stands or wall hangs) as I have many plants that this can be useful for, or I can build a table (Desk) as I need one.

So the decision was to build a desk and below is the journey of this desk to life.

Design

The design will be using On-Shape Software

This Time I will go faster through this process as I have explained most of the usual process in the following Documentations:

Sketches : Link
Dealing with 3D model and adding custom features : Link

Lets go Ahead

The process as usual start with creating a new document and then we start creating our sketch within to have after our 3D model extruded.

New Sketch

I will Draw in the top plane the surface of my Desk.
I will start by building a rectangle adding the needed dimension to it then I will Do the curve using spline feature.

Sketch 1

My entire table dimension are going to be (1200 X 1000 X 700)mm and I’m going to use Plywood with thickness of (17.5)mm.
Now I will trim some of the lines and play with the spline line to decide my needed curve.

Top Sketch

Now After having the sketch ready I will extrude the sketch with the thickness of my material (17.5)mm.

Extrude 1

Now I can add some fillet to the edges in addition to holes in the corners for the cable management.

Fillet and holes

Now I have the top Surface Done, So I will start making the legs.
The legs of the Desk are going to be done using spline line also in order to have a rounded shape but first I have to create guiding lines using the top corner points to the center to create a triangle.

New sketch on the extruded face

Now I will project the lines of the left side of the surface desk on the new sketch.

New sketch on the extruded face

Then I will Draw my lines but before I will Draw a straight line from the center of the left side projected lines with length of 800mm.

Construction Lines Done

Now I will Draw My Spline line using the guiding points I have created.

Spline Ready

Now I will create A line from the bottom to the top with length of 100mm to create there a horizontal line in order to trim the bottom of the spline so I can create a flat surface as leg.

Flat End

Leg Done

Now I will Draw an Ellipse in the middle of the LEG to reduce weight by removing material.

Leg Sketch Done

Now I can Extrude the leg but if I did right now it will become a part of the top surface part so I will move the sketch to the bottom using the transform function.

select to Transform Function

Then I will move it down with - 100 mm.

Transform

Now I can Extrude it.

Left Leg Done

Now I can Add fillet to its edges.

Fillet

Now I will move it back again to its position and i will move it inside the top surface in order to overlap them together.

This will happen as a 3D part (Transform).

Transform 3D part

Transform Settings

Transform Done

No I will Build the Joint between the two parts.

To do this On-Shape have plugin to do it called (Box Joint) you have to added.

Adding the feature

Now I will select the top surface part then the leg to create the joint.

Joint Settings

Now We have the first leg ready with its joint connected to the top surface

Lets create the other leg on the right side using the same technique.

Right Leg Is Done

Now I want to create another support sheet in the back of the desk.
This sheet dimension is (600 X 700 X 17.5)mm.

Back Side sheet

Back Side sheet Dimension

Back Side sheet Done

The design Is Done

Design Is Done

Working Desk by AbusiniZaid on Sketchfab

Export the design for Tool-path

In order to Export we need to create drawing sheet in On-Shape and to have all the parts together or each one alone, But we need to kkep in mind that we have to add the parts with 1:1 Scale.

Let’s create a drawing sheet.

Create Drawing sheet

Now we need to choose the settings for the drawing sheet.

Settings Drawing sheet

Then I can start inserting the parts drawing.

Its important to choose the right view for each part.

Insert

First Part

Then we will add all the parts together.

All parts

Now we can export the sheet in (DXF).

Export

DXF

Now we are ready to import the DXF file to the toolpath software.

ToolPath Generation

I will import the file in Aspire to generate the tool-Path.

Sheet Size

Then I will Sort the parts to fit the sheet.

SOrt Parts

Now we need to edit the parts in order to create Dog Bone Joints.

Important note : to have a good fitting joint I need to have the press fit joint edited and transfer them to Bone joint, In Aspire this can be done using fillet option.

Fillet