3-Computer-Controlled Cutting

Assignments

Group Assignment:

• Identify your lasercutter’s focus, power, speed, rate, kerf, joint clearance and types.
• Document your work to the group work page.
• Also document what you learned to your individual documentation page.

Individual Assignment

• Design, lasercut, and document a parametric construction kit(Make sure to include the lasercutter kerf, which should be able to assembled in multiple different ways)
• Cut something on the vinyl cutter.(most probably a sticker:)

Learning Objectives

• Demonstrate and describe parametric 2D modelling processes.
• Identify and explain processes involved in using the laser cutter.
• Develop, evaluate and construct a parametric construction kit.
• Identify and explain processes involved in using the vinyl cutter.

Include in documentation

• A Link to your group assignment
• Process on how you made your parametric design
• Explain how you made your press-fit construction kit
• Make something with vinyl cutter
• Include design files
• Include hero shots of your project

Here’s the schedual for this week:

You can view my timetable here

Group Assignment

You can view our group assignment here

I got this image from google.

When Laser cutting, these are the steps we need to follow:

1- Open your file in inkscape.

2- Make the nessacary requirments like changing the image to black and white, or changing raster to vector.

3- Change fill and stroke depending on weather you want to engrave or vector cut your material. (when engraving,turn off stroke and put strokestyle as 0.05mm.When vector cutting, put strokestyle as hairline)

4- Press Ctrl + p to open the settings. then click on print to go to epilog dashboard

5- After opened, change the speed and power depending on how you want the cut.(lower power makes cut light, low speed makes cut darker)

6- Than, push the pink looking frame aside from the screen and place your image how you like on the material

7- Finally press the print button and then change the settings on the machine itself.

8- On the laser cutter, print the lens close to the material you want to print with the joystick, auto focus and press done. Then look for the file you sent, and press the main button on the laser cutter.

Safety Measures

There are many safty measures for this machine of course, but these are the main points I rounded up.

1. Read the Manual

2. Each different Laser cutter will have different sets of instructions, so it is important to read the manual to insure your safety.

3. Check the ventilation systems Laser cutters will produce smoke in the process of cutting or engraving, so it is important to chect the exhaust system is turned on(For the laser cutter we are using, making sure these two machines are turned on is important)

1. Inspect the Laser Cutter Make sure to check if all the safty features(ventilation, fire suppression) and make sure the lens of the laser is in good condition. This is the lens of the laser bellow. We can check it by opening it from here.

1. Attendence Do not leave the laser cutter unattended while it’s running. In case any thing goes wrong, you should be at close distance to stop the disaster.

2. Ensure a Clean Work Area Clear the workspace of any flammable materials and keep random items away to avoid interference.

3. Use the Proper Settings Change the required settings for the laser cutter for you to use before printing.

4. Check the Focus Make sure the laser is properly focused for the material being cut. ( otherwise, it could lead to burning/fire or bad cuts.)

5. Fire Safety Precautions Be prepared for anything to happen. Keep useful tools like fire extinguisher’s nearby in case in of an accident(make sure you know how to use it) If a fire stops, make sure the first thing you do is cut the power of the machine

This was a poster designed by the students of our school on the rules of using the laser cutter:

In addition to the safety, we should also make sure to pay attention to the machine while its being cut.If a fire starts, its better to realise immediatly instead of later onwards as well.

Speed and Power settings are also important and highly variable…depending on the type and thickness of the machine, and if you intend to cut or engrave. Generally, slower motion speed and higher power…are required to cut thicker, harder materials. Faster speed and lower power for thin, easy to cut (and easy to burn) materials. The ideal setting will need to be checked through trial and error for each material to be cut. This was tested in our group assignment.

Individual assignment

Vinyl cutter

This machine can be considered as a sticker cutter in general.(It cuts adhesive vinyl sheets into shapes for crafts, signs, and designs.) These are the parts of this machine

image_source

The blade used for the cutting process can also be changed depending on what you want to print.

image_source I got the image above from aliexpress.

Safety measruments

1. Protective Equipment : Eye protectionl like glasses and gloves are the most important while working with this machine

2. Ensure the Cutter is Set Up Properly: Change all the settings according to your requirments and place the vinyl sheet carefuly.

3. Handling of Materials: Vinyl sheets edges may have sharp parts so be cautious when handling vinyl, as the edges can cause cuts or scrapes.

4. Electrical Safety: Proper Power Supply and powering off when not in use.

5. Machine Maintenance: Regular Cleaning of the machine to make sure there are no damages done.

6. Know how to opperate it: Familiarization with the Manual and learn the instructions needed to use it. If not, have someone who knows how to use the machine with you.

7. Fire Safety: Fire Extinguisher nearby in case of emergencies.

8. Do not overload: Make sure not to overload the machine with too many layers of vinyl, as this can cause jams or damage the cutter.

Assignment

First of all, heres some details on the machine

Model: Roland CAMM-1 GS-24

Software: Roland CutStudio and Adobe Illustrator

Cutting area: Maximum 584 (W) × 25000 (L) mm (22-1/1 (W) × 984-1/4 (L) in.)

Maximum material thickness: Around 0.1 inches (2.5 mm)

Cutting speed: 10 to 500 mm/s (all directions)

Usable tools: Roland CAMM-1 series blade

Settings:

Textile Vinyl: Speed: 15 cm/s / Force: 90gf

Copper Vinyl: Speed: 1 cm/s / Force: 40gf

The assignment was to try out the vinyl cutter and make something yourself. To use this machine, we have to:

Step-1: Download the file you want to cut. to do this, you can rightclick on the image, and select save as, and chose a name for your file.

This is the file I choose:

Step-2: Open cut studio.

Step-3: Adjust the size of the sticker material. Go to file, cutting settup, then select get from machine.(will directly send the size of the sticker material from the machine)

Step-4: Import the file you want to print:

Step-5: Get the outline of the image.(right click on image to get this settings.)

From here. click on extract contour lines, then click ok.(drag the outline away from the real image, and delate the real image.)

This is the finished outline!

Step-6: Lastly, export the outline. Type ctrl + p to access the settings, and press ok at the bottom left corner.

This is the printing in process:

Step-7: Weeding and Transfering your sticker!(be careful with this part of the process, espically if you have a lot of small parts/I ended up not doing this part to well)

Weeding: When you remove the unwanted parts of the sticker amterial to get your final outcome

Transfering: After your done weeding the material, transfer tape is used to transfer the sticker where you want to paste it.

And thats how you use this machine!

Parametric design kit

This weeks assignment had the task of designing a parametric kit, which is basicly a set of peices of different shapes that fit together without the need for any extra tools like screws, tape or glue. These sets of pieces should be able to piece together different structures.

Parametric is basicly a designing method where you can change certain parameters to chanf=ge the dimensions of a shapes model. This allows flexibility to the designing process.

Parametric Modeling usually uses the mathematical relationships in a way its all connected, so if you change the dimension for one part, the others will be affected as well ex- If the length of a rectangle is A, you could keep the height as A*2, so that when you change the dimensions of A, the height will change in the same manner.

Desigining

Making the shapes

Step 1- Specify the Paremeters

Step 2- Make the sketch

type the name of the parameter you want to use into the dimension box

Step 3- Extrude the design(select create and then extrude.)

Step 4- Send stetch to laser printer.

Use the Project command (P on the keyboard) to generate a 2D outline of your 3d bodies. (click p on your keyboard to access these settings.)

Cutting and assembling

Step 1- Open inkscape and open the file. Change all the settings thats required then cut your design

Step 2- Print your design. It needs to be cleaned time to time as well. Use a brush and a vacuum to remove the dust(sadly I didn’t have a picture of the clean frame taken )

This was my final outcome!

Design files.

Parametric design DXF files

Thank you!

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Last update: April 24, 2025