Week 3: Computer-Controlled Cutting

Assignment Overview

Week 3: Computer-Controlled Cutting. Individual work is documented first, then group work — matching how this page is organized below.

Assignments

Group Assignment

Do your lab’s safety training
Characterize your laser cutter’s focus, power, speed, rate, kerf, joint clearance and types

Individual Assignment

Cut something on the vinyl cutter
Design, laser-cut, and document a parametric construction kit, accounting for the laser-cutter kerf

Extra credit: design it to be assembled in multiple ways · include elements that aren’t flat · engrave as well as cut

👤 Individual Work

Parametric modelling, laser-cut construction kit, and vinyl logo — documented from UNNC FabLab.

🖥️ Lab & software

Fab lab: UNNC FabLab (laser cutter, vinyl cutter)

CAD / parametric design: Autodesk Fusion 360

📐 Parametric Modelling

Fusion 360 — parametric workflow

I used Autodesk Fusion 360 for parametric modeling of the construction kit (sketches, constraints, and export for laser cutting). Screenshots of the CAD model:

Fusion 360 — parametric construction kit design — Fusion 360 — design view (1)

✂️ Design and laser-cut a parametric construction kit

Modular construction kit

After finishing the model in Fusion, I cut the kit on the laser cutter at UNNC FabLab, accounting for kerf in the design. Below: video of the cut, then photos of the parts.

Laser cutting the kit at UNNC FabLab (landscape).

Laser-cut construction kit — photo 1 — Parts after cutting (1)

Laser-cut construction kit — photo 2 — Parts after cutting (2)

🏷️ Vinyl cutter

Logo cut at UNNC FabLab

Describe the process to cut my logo with the vinyl cutter at UNNC FabLab.

👥 Group Work

Laser safety and machine characterization — shared group documentation.

1. Cutting preset & speed vs energy

Below is our group video for this week: it shows the laser cutting preset we used (cut settings as documented for the group assignment).

Group assignment — laser preset / cut settings (screen recording).

Group result: the photo below documents one of our characterization outputs; we used it to relate cutting speed to laser energy (how power and feed rate combine in practice).

Group laser characterization — speed vs energy relationship — Group work — result used to relate speed and energy for the laser cutter.

2. Kerf measurement

As the second group task we measured the laser kerf (the width of material removed by the beam). From the measurements below we estimate our kerf at approximately 0.3 mm.

Kerf measurement — sample 1 — Kerf measurement (1)

Kerf measurement — sample 2 — Kerf measurement (2)