Week 3: Computer controlled cutting¶
This week the focus was on individual assignment and group assignment:
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vinyl machine (individual)
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Laser cutting machine testing (Group)
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Design and cut press fit project (individual)
Vinyl machine (individual)¶
Firstly, you have to download the application corresponding to the machine you’re using. In my case, I used silhouette Studio.
This is the interface of the application, in the center you can see this white-like paper which represents the mat that you will insert into the machine. Unfortunately, as you can see on the right, the units are in “inch”.
To change the unit:
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Go to file > preferences.
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You can see the option of “Unit of measurements” where you can pick the unit that fits your preferences. ( in my case, I put it as millimeters)
You can insert any logo or design you made or you can download any from the internet. Note that the design does not have to be created in vectors since the app itself has a tracing tool. To use the tracing tool:
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Import or paste your design in the white space.
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Go to the fifth option on the vertical toolbar on the right. Then, click on “Select trace area”.
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Using your mouse, select the area over your design.
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On the right, scroll down then click on “Trace”.
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Now you can move the trace away from the original design.
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Delete the original picture or design and leave the trace only. You can add other designs or duplicate the trace to cut multiple logos at the same time. Moreover, hook your laptop to the machine using the cable and make sure the machine recognizes that your laptop is connected. However, do not click “send” until you load the mat inside the machine.
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Now cut a piece of your chosen color (make sure to cut a piece to the size of your design to avoid wasting material). Then, put it on the mat, the mat itself should have been enough to stick the material on it; however, with repeated usage, it lost its stickiness. Therefore, we tape the edges.
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Put the mat inside the machine and Load it inside. Then from your laptop, click on send.
This is the result. Some small errors occurred and messed up the process a little bit these errors could be:
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The design had small details while being small in size.
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speed and the blade settings weren’t the ideal settings for the used material.
Laser cutting machine testing (Group)¶
Regarding this assignment, it was concluded as a group. Therefore, the documentation was done by my classmate Faisal Fathi you can access the documentation on his website by clicking on Faisal’s Website.
Reflection: The laser machine is a fascinating device, this is the first time that I get to witness or operate a computer controlled machine in that sense and scale. To use cut a design using this machine, the design must be in the form DXF Which is a vector form files. The machine has three axis (x, y, z), the x and y can be controlled depending on the design size and cutting location while the z muts be set manually depending on the thickness of the material to be cut. There are 2 inputs that control the intensity of the laser (Speed and power), these can be changed and adjusted based on the material to be cut, for instance, 2 mm cardboard will require less power than 6 mm acrylic. Lastly, the machine has 2 modes (Cut and scan). Cut is used to cut the material through all while scan used to engrave on the material, the engrave depth can be controlled depending also on the power and speed of the machine.
Design and cut press fit project (individual)¶
We are required to create a press-fit design that we will cut on cardboard later using the same laser-cutting machine we made the group assignment on. According to the results acquired from the group assignment:
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The cardboard thickness: 2 mm
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The thickness of the Gap must be 1.6 mm. This will create a tight fit between the two pieces.
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The ideal speed is 80 mm/s
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the ideal power is 55%
For creating the design, I am going to use Fusion software. One of the things that will make your design flexible and versatile is making it Parametric. In the sense that you assign specific diameters for the entire sketch; this will allow you to change the design’s dimensions so easily whenever you want to make it on a bigger or smaller scale or cut it on different material.
To make your design Parametric:
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Go to modify > change parameters.
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This window shows you the already specified parameters you put (in your case there will be none). To add a new click on the “+”.
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This smaller window will appear, in the name write the name you want to assign to this specific parameter. In the expression value, put the value you want to assign to this parameter.
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when you add values to your drawing using the “dimension tool” you can write the name of the parameter instead of numbers and the parameter will appear to you. After applying the parameter, you will see “fx” before it which means this is a parametric value.
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After finishing your whole design, extrude the bodies to any value. Then, make a copy of each body according to how many copies you want of each piece. (you can do this by clicking on the letter “m” on your keyboard, the tick the box that says make a copy and move the copy away)
After, go to the top left, click on Create new sketch, then select the top plane.
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Go to create > project/include > project.
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select all the pieces and then click “Ok” This step will create a separate sketch of the bodies.
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Go to the sketch list, you will find a newly created sketch.
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Right-click on the newly created sketch then click on “save as DFX”.
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save the file in your desired location.
After this, we sent the file to the computer that was hooked to the laser-cutting machine. Then imported our files (we put multiple designs together to be cut into the same sheet of cardboard).
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Double-click on the black small rectangular.
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this window will appear, in this window we assign the speed and power appropriate for this type of material. (we knew the appropriate values from the rest we performed earlier). The values are (speed = 80 mm/s) and (power = 55%)
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After putting the designs, and assigning the values, click on “download”
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Now move to the machine:
- Click on file to bring the files from the computer.
- Click on enter to accept the file to the machine.
- You can move the laser shooter using these arrows.
- After selecting an appropriate point using the arrows, click on “origin” to assign an origin point.
- Click on “frame” The machine will show you the border where it will be cut to make sure that the cardboard piece is big enough.
- If you are ready, click on “start” so the machine starts cutting.
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These are the cut parts.
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After assembling the pieces together, I found out the joints that held the rings were too tall and gave the crown a weird look. Therefore, I decided to design different joints that are shorter.
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As you can see, this is the difference between the old and new joints.
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This is the crown after putting the shorter joints.
You can add any shapes you want and customize your own crown with different and unique shapes!