Week 3. Computer Controlled Cutting¶

hero shot

Assignment of the week¶

Group Assignment:

To characterize the laser cutter’s focus, power, speed, rate, kerf and joints clearance.

Individual Assignment:

To make stciker using vinyl cutter
To design a parametric press fit kit that can be made into more than two different shapes

Group Assignment:¶

This week we were given group assignment where our main goal was to explore the laser cutting machine in detail starting from putting On and off, process of cleaning the working area of laser cutting machine after completing the work. Not only that we were also engaged in characterizing the laser cutter’s focus, power, speed, rate, kerf and joints clearance and in addition to that to follow the safety precautions while operating the machine.

Link to the group assignment is here

As it was a group assignment all of us were involved in one or another way so little did all of us contributed in the assignment. At the same time I was very curious to know the kerf value of machine so I directly jumped into finding the kerf and joint clearances of the machine because I thought it would be challenging one to do that by referring the assignment of previous fab academy students.

At first we didn’t get the accurate kerf value because we kept stroke style width as hairline. So in order to rectify our mistakes we kept back the stroke style width as 0.1mm by which we were able to get the kerf value as 0.125.

In order to study the kerf and joint clearances of the laser cutting machine we took cardboard of 5mm thickness and cut two combs out of it. So to calculate the kerf, we used a kerf generation tool which was made by Atsufumi Suzuki a fablab Kamakura graduate.

Firstly we opened the kerf generation tool and entered our parameters

We used the cardboard of 5mm thickness and the gaps in the combs ranged from 4.4 to 5.4 with the increments of 0.2mm to determine the best fit.

This image shows the cutting of combs in laser cutting

After finished cutting two nos of combs we took out and started fitting both combs together to see best fit and we found that 4.8mm gaps provided the best fit, ensuring optimal joint clearance.

So, on 5mm thickness cardboard 4.8mm gaps provided perfect fit for the joints.

Finally to calculate the kerf

We measured back the 5.4mm gap of the comb using vernier caliper and found that it measured 5.65 in vernier calliper.

5.65 - 5.4 = 0.25
0.25/2 = 0.125
therefore kerf = 0.125

Individual Assignment¶

Vinyl Cutter: Roland GS-24 CAMM-1¶

vinyl cutter

Vinyl cutter is a machine, where we use blade as a cutting tool to cut material known as vinyl for making stickers, floor covering and clothing etc… for decoration purposes. Since I am fond of football and I am a big fan of Cristiano Ronaldo I tried making sticker of him using vinyl cutter.

Steps of making stickers in vinyl cutter

Put on the machine before ensuring that all the necessary connections are being made.

Check whether the tip of blade is protuding out or not after opening the blade holder from cutting carriage and adjust it’s length.

load the vinyl and pull up the sheet loading lever which is present on the left hand side of machine which actually holds the vinyl tightly on the machine before cutting takes place.

Next just select the type of sheet that you are going to work with by pressing on the cursor keys which is present on the operation panel. As I have loaded piece of sheet, I just selected on that and pressed Enter on the operation panel. As soon as I press Enter the machine will calibrate itself and gets the dimension of sheet which we have loaded.

Open the inkscape and import the image that you want to work with and do bitmap tracing which helps to convert raster image into vector image.

After you get the vector image, click on the extensions on the menu bar and hover down on the drop down list untill you see and select on Roland-cut studio and finally open cut studio option which will open you in new page comprising of cut studio.

The next step would be to ensure that the specification of our design that we have provided and the dimension of the sheet are correlating or not before performing the cutting operation. For this just click on the cutting option and change option and get from machine option for getting the dimension of sheet from machine to the system in cut studio’s page and after we are done just click on Ok and machine will start cutting our job.

The machine will start cutting and it will stop after completing the operation. Remove the vinyl by releasing back the sheet loading lever and cut out your sticker. After that do weeding and transfer it to transfer tape.

Remove the transfer tape from the sticker and paste it on the object on which you want to paste it so I decided to paste on my laptop.

To design a parametric press fit kit¶

For designing the parametric press fit kit, I used fusion 360 and I tried to make a simple design comprising of two components which at the end formed atleast three shapes after assembling them. It was really fun designing and cutting those intricate shapes and assembling them.

I opened fusion 360 and start creating my parametric design but before sketching I entered all the values in change parameters in the drop down list after hovering down the modify option in the tool bar.

After that I created circle by selecting one of the plane and entered the dimension from the change parameter option.

Then I created rectangle and applied the dimension directly by selecting from change parameters option

Next I selected the slot width from the change parameters to apply the dimension of the width of slot.

Then I selected the circular pattern and created 5 nos of rectangles.

After I finish designing, I clicked on finish sketching and carried out extrude option on my first component.

After completing designing one of the component, next I started designing second component which I had mentioned its name as connector in the user parameter in change parameters option. For that I just clicked on create option > slot > three point arc slot and created the second component.

After selecting one of the plane, I tried creating the second component by giving the dimension from change parameters option. First I constructed connector length.

Following that I constructed the connector width of my design and edited the sketch little bit.

After I finished drawing the sketch of second component I just clicked on Finish Sketch option which allowed me to extrude my design.

Now I am almost to the last step and only thing that I am left was to make slot on the connector so that I can assemble my parts together so for that I created 3 slots and applied the dimension from change parameters option.

After I am done with creating rectangle on the connector, I tried to extrude it but this time I chose the cut option from the dialog box and made three slots.

This is how my component 1 and component 2 looked in fusion 360 before processing it in the laser cutting. Lastly I just saved both files and exported them in dxf files.

After that I started cutting them in laser cutting machine.

Then I removed them from laser cutting machine and started assembling together and I was amazed with the shapes that it can be made from my design.

Those are the shapes that I made it with my parametric construction fit kit. I assembled them and tried making a car, simple flower stand and a simple robot.