Week_3 assignments
This week need to do two main assignments:
1- To characterize the local fab lab laser cutting machine parameters with my lab mates like: focus, cutting speeds and power for diffrerent materials, kerf and etc.
2- To document our work to the group work page and reflect on my individual page what I learned.
3- To design and cut a parameteric construction kit considering the kerf calculations. The kit has to be assembled multiple ways.
4- To cut something on the vinyl cutter.
So let's cut our way into this week ^^.
Group assignments
We had an overview abot the use of laser cutting machine and how it works and what varaity of material can be cut using the machine.
We started testing the cutting power and speeds for various materials. I workerd with 6mm plywood, 5mm transparent acrylic, felt and green leaves thanks to a friend Dina Ali who suggested the idea.
I like I said I tested felt and green leaves I wanted to try the dotting process to cut a path of dots in the felt to be cut later.
I tried using the engraving process on a green leaf but I found it could better speed cut it.
And this our group assignment outputs of using various materials:
My construction kit
I used Fusion 360 parametric design to make the construction kit listing these parameters
- "kerf" which I made it to be 0.25mm according to the machine I used and the how much press fit force needed to connect the pieces
- "Material thickness" I made it to be 3mm as I used 3mm plywood to do so
- "Slot/Tab length" and here I made it to be 5mm.
Before designing the kit I thought about what the shapes of the pieces should be like. I figure that each construction kit has two main cattogeries of pieces which are: Pivot connecting pieces and linkage pieces and to make your kit more flexable you need to have varaity of pivot connection pieces.
So I designed these pivot connection pieces there are two types: on 2.5D piece and 3D piece (which is made out of 2 pieces).
I designed two main linkage pieces:
After I design the kit on fusion I exported the sketches as dxf files and the imported them to LaserWorks.
Then I downloaded the file to the machine and fabricated it.
Here is my construction kit Hero shot where I invited my friends to play with the kit to make these funny figures ^^.
Parametric living hinge box
I wanted to make a parametric desined living hinge box. So I followed this tutorial
Living hinge hero shot ^^.
Vinyl cutting
For the vinyl cutting I downloaded a photo of the eight gate seal from Naruto and made it to put it on my laptop. The process was easy but it needed patience when removing the final piece from the main sheet.
I imported the impage to Inkscape to get a solid png using the bitmap feature.
After I got the PNG I imported it to Signmaster.
After that I created cut contours using the create contour feature.
you will need to adjust the opacity and the smoothness to get all the contours you want.
After that I went on with the cutting process hitting the Cut button or go to the File menu to Cut/Plan and then Send to Cutter.
Then I set up the Force and the speed by doulble clicking on the Cutting Preset.
There is a way to set the force and speed on the machine manually.
Then I clicked on Cut Now button.
After that I removed the sheet and then placed paint tape on the cut area to get the vinyl of with keeping the orientation.
Half way there ^^.
Finalllllly ^^.
Now I placed the pieces on the paint tape on the surface of my laptop. I press a little and sweeped over it and then started to peel the paint tape.
