Week 16: Wildcard Week - Zund Machine
Individual Assignment: Design and produce something with a digital process (incorporating computer-aided design and manufacturing) not covered in another assignment, documenting the requirements that your assignment meets, and including everything necessary to reproduce it.
What is a Zund machine and what will I do with it?
I have chosen to focus on learning the basics of using the Zund machine which is here in the Kerala lab. Zund machines are highly-sophisticated multi-axis Swiss machines which can cut a large variety of materials from cardboard to textiles to plastics. The Zund machines are a great option for many materials which cannot be cut with a laser cutter. Here it is:
A realistic project I want to pursue this week is a case of cardboard drawers for small equipment pieces modeled after one here in the lab.
Here is the individual drawer which I'll need to model, first assembled and then spread out:
Will also need the entire larger case structure, but that will come later..
Designing the Project:
Fusion 360 can be used for preparing files for cutting on the Zund machine. In particular there is a "sheet metal" menu, which I never tried. I started by watching a tutorial here. Hence, I followed the steps and understood some of the basic functionalities.
Now I will try to copy the design of the box referenced above, however with some improvements to the placing of the creases and also some adjustment to size (I want a smaller one).
However, first we need to set up a new rule for cardboard. As shown in the screenshot below, we navigate to "Sheet Metal" -> "Modify" -> "Sheet metal rules", and from there create a new rule for cardboard. Some values need to be measured, and information entered.
After following the procedures described in the introductory video, in particular about flanges, I did complete the design for a simple box, which when unfolded looks like so:
Using ZUND Machine to cut the design:
Big thanks to Ravi for guiding us through the process:
There are 3 sets of software that are used: Cut Editor, Cut Queue, and Cut Center.
Cut Editor: we import the file into cut editor, and here we specify the very precise material type as well as the operations to perform in the different parts of the design, for example "crease" or "cut".
Cut Queue: this software is not so relevant for our context, but in large factories with multiple people pushing jobs it will be helpful to organize the production.
Cut Center: this is where the tools are selected for the particular job. In the below screenshots we see first the tools chosen for each task, and second the parameters for those tools such as speed and cutting depth.
The videos below show the following processes:
Calibrating:
Creasing:
Cutting:
What a sexy and smooth machine!
Result and Analysis:
Here is our freshly cut piece:
...and then in assembled form:
It's not bad, but not perfect either. Among areas of improvement:
- increasing length of flanges tucked under the front and back faces by offsetting.
- decreasing the length of the flanges tucked into the extruded portion.
And still need to develop a case, but requires more time...