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Computer-Controlled Cutting

Group Assignment

  • Do your lab’s safety training
  • Characterize your lasercutter’s focus, power, speed, rate, kerf, joint clearance and types.
  • Document your work to the group work page and reflect on your individual page what you learned.

Individual Assignment

  • Design, lasercut, and document a parametric construction kit, accounting for the lasercutter kerf, which can be assembled in multiple ways.
  • Cut something on the vinyl cutter.

Learning Outcomes

  • 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.

Have you answered these questions?

  • Linked to the group assignment page.
  • Explained how you created your parametric design.
  • Documented how you made your press-fit construction kit.
  • Documented how you made something with the vinyl cutter.
  • Included your original design files.
  • Included hero shots of your results.

Time Management

You can access my timetable here.

Group Assignment

You can access the page to our group assignment here

However, I have documented some important information in my individual page as well. You will be able to learn more in my group assignment page.

Laser Cutter

The laser cutter in our Fab Lab is characterized with the following details:

  • Model: Fusion Edge 12

  • Software: Epilog software suite

  • Work area: 609 mm x 305 mm (24” x 12”)

  • Maximum material thickness: typically 6-9mm (1/4” to 3/8”)

  • Minimum material thickness: 0.25mm (0.01”)

Kerf

You can learn more about Kerf in here.

Reflection

Working on the group assignment was quite fun!! We learned the necessary safety precautions we need to take while owrking with the laser cutterand experimented with different speed and power settings for the laser cutter. We learned about kerf and its importance as well.

Individual Assignment

Parametric Construction Kit

I am going to use Fusion 360 to design.

  1. I started off by defining some parameters. To do so, go to ‘Modify’ in the toolbox, and tap on parameters.

  2. I defined the following parameters:

  3. Select the XY plane to create a sketch on it. From the ‘Create’ dropdown menu, select ‘edge polygon’ from ‘polygon’. Set the side of the polygon as ‘octa_side’ which is a parameter we defined earlier. Set the number of sides as 8(to create an octagon).

  4. To create the slots:

  5. Place your cursor on one of the middle of one of the edges of our hexagon. You should see a small traingle when it is in the middle.

  6. Set the width and length of the slot to the parameters we defined earlier.

  7. Under ‘create’, go to ‘circular design’

  8. Under ‘objects’ select the four edges of the rectangle. For the ‘centre point’ select the centre of the pentagon and set the ‘quantity’ as the number of edges of your main shape.

  9. Select only your name shape and extrude it by 4mm(the thickness of your material).

You’re done! Congratulations!

Here are a bunch of other designs I made:

Exporting the designs

Follow these steps to export your designs in DXF file and import in inkscape to start laser cutting.

  1. Enter P on your keyboard to project your design. Something that looks like this should open.

  2. Then select the top of one of you shapes and the corners of your chosen shape.

  3. Press ‘Ok’ and ‘Finish Sketch’.

  4. Right-click on your latest sketch and tap on ‘Export DXF’. Name it and save it.

  5. Do the same with all of you other designs as well.

  6. Import your designs in Inkscape by tapping on ‘File’ and then on ‘Import’. This is what my designs looks like after it has been imported.

  7. For vector cutting, turn off ‘Fill’, turn on ‘Stroke paint’, and under ‘Stroke Style’, set the unit of ‘width’ to ‘hairline’.

  8. Arrange your design.

  9. Enter ‘Ctrl + P’ to start printing!

  10. Make sure to change the speed and the power.

  11. Make sure to Auto Focus your laser!

  12. You can start printing now!!

This is my first result which was a fail because the material thickness is actually 2 mm, and I had set it to be 4 mm😭

It’s fine! Let’s try again.

Here are the final results.

Hero shot!

For me, it kind of looks like a bumble bee(?). Here is a front view.

I also made another design with it. I tried to make it resemble the Golden Snitch from Harry Potter.

Vinyl Cutting Machine

Vinyl Cutter is a machine used to cut different shapes and letters from a thin sheet of paper. I used this machine to create stickers this week.

I found out the details of the Vinyl Cutter at our Fab Lab from Damzang Chimi Seldon’s documentation. The details are provided below:

  • 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

This is a picture labeling the different components of the vinyl cutter:

Image Souce

Operating the Vinyl Cutter

Following are the steps on how to create stickers using the vinyl cutter!!

  1. You can either choose to create your own design or use on online. Import your design in a software of you choice. I used CutStudio. You can learn more about this software here.

  2. You put your sheet(where the stickers will be created) inside the vinyl cutter and lock it in. Choose the option ‘Piece’ in your vinyl cutter machine.

  3. In your CutStudio software, adjust the page size to the dimesions of the actual sheet you loaded in the machine. You can do so by going to ‘File’ and cliking on ‘Cutting Setup’ .

  4. Import your design. Right-click on it and tap on ‘Image outline’.

  5. Clik on ‘extract contour lines’ and click ‘Ok’ when you are done. You will now be able to extract the outline of your design only(like the name suggests).

  6. You can also choose to drag a box aroud the design to make it easier to extract the sticker.

  7. Click on ‘File’ and ‘Cutting’ to start cutting your design.

  8. Weeding: The unwanted material of the sheet is removed in this process.

  9. Transfering: After you are done removing the excess material, transfer tape is used to transfer your sticker to your desired location.

That’s literally it:) Congratulations on making it so far!

Using the Vinyl Cutter

For my first try, I decided to print Ryuk(a character from Death Note). However, the image I downloaded was too complex(lines were very close together) and the sheet I was using was way too small. Therefore, it did not turn out that well. It was a fail :(

From this mistake, I learnt not to choose designs with too many small lines that are very close together. However, if you really want to do it, make sure to use a bigger sheet and scale the design bigger.

Let us try another photo. This is how it turned out. I am very happy with it.

I also printed a bunch of other stickers as well and decorated my laptop using it. This is how it all turned out.

I am quite happy with it, but the more I look at it, the more cringe and emo(?) it’s starting to look😭

I got the images for my sticker from Pinterest and Google. Credit goes to the original owners! We also printed out my logo using a red sheet this time.

You can also get free black and white designs to print in this link.

Orginal Design Files

Thank You!

The template for this website was provided by Mr. Anith Ghalley and used with his permission

Last update: February 14, 2025