3. Computer Controlled Cutting¶
Assignments for week 3:¶
1. Group Assignment
- To do our lab’s safety trainings.
- to Characterize our laser cutter’s focus, power, speed, rate, kerf, joint clearance and types.
2. Individual Assignment
- To cut something on the vinyl cutter.
- To design, laser cut, and document a parametric construction kit, accounting for the laser kerf, which can be be assembled in multiple ways, and for extra credit include elements that aren’t flat.
1. Group Assignment
Here is our group assignment here
Vinyl Cutter.¶
For this assignment, i planned to make logo for my Fab Lab. I used ROLAND CAMM-1 GS-24 Vinyl cutter.
my image reference source from here
Specifications of ROLAND CAMM-1 GS-24
- Dimension(W X D X H) : (860 X 319 X 235)mm
- Driving method : Digital control servo motor
- Max. cutting area : width=584mm, length=25m
- Max. cutting speed: 10-500mm/s.
- Blade force: 30-350 gf
- Mechanical resolution : 0.0125mm/step.
- overall weight: appro. 13.5kg.
for detailed technical data, go to my reference source here
Process involved for Vinly works:
1. Design Creation and Set up:
I used directly fusion design file as i have designed back at my work place. But i had to convert my fusion file to DXF format and further edited into hairline in CorelDRAW.
2. Machine set up:
I checked the connection to Vinyl cutter and its computer. I removed the blade from its case and adjusted blade tip.I selected black color vinyl sheet piece for my initial print by placing between the marked guides of pinch rollers.Next, i ‘ON’ the machine and choosed sheet as ‘piece’ followed by ‘Enter’. The machine started calibrating to my sheet piece.
3. Sending Design to the Vinyl cutter:
I used Inkscape to open my dxf file and resized my image to 164mm by 120mm. From the ‘Menu Bar’, choosed ‘Extensions’ and selected my connected machine. Then, i had adjusted to the space by using arrow keys of keyboard. Further, i went under ‘Cutting’ and proceed by pressing ‘change’ and ‘Get from machine’ and ‘OK’. The machine started to cut my first layer.
4. Cutting and weeding my first layer sticker:
Firstly i had cut the sheet piece size near the boundaries of cut and removed the unwanted parts.
5. Transfer,Finishing and cleaning
To transfer my work, i had used masking transfer tape over the sticker and smooth out without allowing to get air inside.Then pasted it to my laptop and finally removed the transfer tape. I followed same procedures above by cutting each piece and transfering as my logo was of different colors and cleaned my working area.
Laser Cutting works¶
Here, i will brief you on how i have considered Lasercutter’s kerf, Designed, Lasercut and assembling possible results of a Parametric Construction Kit. For this i used trotec Speedy 100 laser cutter.
Specifications for trotec speedy 100 laser cutter:
reference: image from our group assignment.The link is here.
1. Finding laser cutter’s kerf¶
Before i proceed for my actual laser cutting works, it was important for me to know about the kerf and joint clearances with the machine.For this I used 5mm thick cardboard to find the kerf as i will be using the same size material for this assignment. To calculate kerf for 5mm thick cardboard, i referred a kerf generation tool from this link, which was done during our group assignment.
The gaps in the comb showed ranging from 4.4mm to 5.4mm with gap intervals of 0.2mm. So we cut the two pieces in our laser cutter and we concluded that 4.8mm gaps give us the best fit of joint. Then we verified the kerf by measuring the gap for 5.4mm which read as 5.65mm in digital vernier caliper.
- (5.65)-(5.4)= (0.25/2)
- therefore kerf was 0.125mm. Disclaimer: images above for laser cutting works are from our group assignment
2. Design using fusion 360(Parametric Construction Kit)¶
Firstly, i went under “MODIFY” and choosed “Change parameters” to create parametric kit in fusion 360.By choosing (+) added the list of parameters, filling.
I stared creating sketch by choosing on “CREATE” and choosed top plane.Drawn circle and given dimension by choosing ‘circle_diameter’ from the parametric list.
Then i selected ‘offset’ and drawing construction line and made it as 4.8mm kerf width and its length as 10mm.
I used “TRIM” command to delate unwanted parts and choosed “circular pattern” from “CREATE” to make into 4 copies on the path.
Then, i sketched centre rectangle of size 4.8mm by 15mm length using the parametric kit list.I copied first kit into 4 nos. by choosing and selecting ‘copy’ from “MODIFY”.
Next, i have drawn half part of larger connector and mirrored it and copied it into 3 nos. Then, i choosed “3-point Arc” under “Arc” and kept distance between points as 80mm.I kept radius of my arc as 45.647mm and added fillet with radius 8mm and copied that part into 6 pieces.
I continued to sketch smaller connector to half and then mirrored. I extruded my whole design set as 5mm and save my design as both fusion and dxf files for laser cutting.
3. Laser cutting¶
I turned ‘ON’ trotec speedy 100 laser cutter by turning the key clockwise with the lid closed.After hearing the beep sound, opened the lid and placed my 5mm card board sheet on the bed. Next i moved Z-axis down and placed Z-axis tool on nozzle alignment and moved Z-axis up till it touches the job piece.
I opened ‘Inkscape’ software and imported my ‘dxf’ file for laser cutting.I had set proper stroke width and style and kept my stroke thickness as 0.01mm. Then resized the page to fit the content.
After that clicked ‘print’ and selected ‘Trotec Engraver’ and click ‘print’.Under material setting, i choosed ‘cardboard’ from ‘paper’.Finally clicked play button to start the cutting.
4. Assemblying my possible results¶
After finished cutting, i tried to come up with some possible things.
