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Wildcard week

Task

Design and produce something with a digital process not covered in another assignment, documenting the requirements that your assignment meets, and including everything necessary to reproduce it. Possibilities include but are not limited to wildcard week examples.

Embroidering a kitchen apron

A friend of mine has moved recently to a new apartment. I want to not-so-subtly suggest that he organize a BBQ, so I'm going to gift him a kitchen apron with the street number for his apartment embroidered on it.

Julia Gässe's documentation has been invaluable.

This is the embroider that we have in the lab:

Preparing the file

In inkscape, open Extensions -> ink/stitch -> lettering. In my computer, the dialog force closes whenever you input anything. It's an M1 macbook air. Therefore I used the Windows computer in the lab.

Ink/Stitch fonts I like:

  • Magnolia KOR
  • Roman AGS
  • Kaushan Script MAM: pretty big and flowery. Selected!

You select the font, write the characters, select the scale, and apply. That will show you a preview where you will see the actual stitches and the estimated time to finish.

The settings I used for the characters "102" on Kaushan Script MAM where:

  • At 200% scale: 325 on monitor * 5mm / 16.3mm = 99.7mm wide

Once satisfied, save the file by running File -> Save a copy... and choose PES format. Save your file as SVG if you want to edit it later. Copy the PES to a USB stick.

Embroidering

You need to fix the cloth in the holder. Then thread the thread, plug in your USB stick and select your file. Place it, scale it or rotate as necessary, then hit start.

Watching this machine work is mesmerizing! I made some tests on a piece of cloth with similar rigidity to the denima apron I plan to decorate:

The first try came out quite bad: the bottom bobin thread showed through the colored top:

I fiddled a bit with the tension (upped it to 4.4), changed to a more rigid cloth that was more similar to the one I'll be using (denim), changed the bobin thread to the same as the main thread... and voilá!

With that, I was ready to go for the apron:

The final result is not quite professional, but I think my friend will enjoy BBQ'ing with it on for the next few years 😍

The svg and pes for the embroiderer are here and here

Local Class Notes

Embroidery

Inkscape: Inkstitch plugin

Julia Gässe's documentation.

Lettering

Software:

  1. Start new document and save as .pes
  2. Insert writing: Extensions -> Ink/Stitch -> Lettering
  3. Save as .pes (only for printing, .svg will conserve more editing capability)
  4. Copy out to USB stick.

hardware.

  1. Set up backing material and sandwich with the hoop, as taut as you can.
  2. Configure size and rotation
  3. Start!

Drawings

  1. Draw
  2. Extensions -> Ink/Stitch -> Params: set params for each stroke and fill. Play around, Julia did a lot of testing of different parameters so we have great samples.

Extensions -> Ink/Stitch -> Visualize and export -> Simulator to see How it will come out.

  • Do not overlap more than two stitches or it will break the needle.
  • If doing multiple colors, optimize the drawing order to avoid unnecessary changes of thread.

Threading

Open the top, follow the numbers. Solid line is for the main needle, dashed line is to refill the bobin.

  • The foot has to be up down (up?) in order to be able to perform step 5 (?).

Addendum: turtlestitch

Turtle programming with turtlestich.

Machining the foam mold.

RhinoCAM: We are going to start using 3D operations.

Roughing with 12mm tool: because we go deep into the material, we need a long tool. We are using foam. If we used wood, it would be the same tool, only slower. 1. Create/Select tool. 7000mm/s cut, 5000mm/s plunge. With wood it would be around 3000 mm/s. 2. Add step Horizontal Roughing: the offset is the most important parameter.

Horizontal finishing 1. Smaller stepover. 2. Insido or outside the curve 3. Cut depth control 4. With foam we can do entry "None", with wood we would go "along the path" 5. Bridges/tabs: very big, they are easy to cut.

Robots

We have 6-axis robots.

You can attach many tools to them.

Coordinate systems: base, world, tool.

Inverse kinematics: from the desired change in position to the required joint movements. Grasshopper will do this for us.

Joint interpolation: ask the robot to go from a to b, let it decide how.

Arc interpolation: tell it the arc it must make.

Singularity: a position the robot can't reach.