3. Computer controlled cutting¶
This week I worked on computer controlled cutting on laser cutter and vinyl cutter.
Parametric design¶
Parametric designing is when the design of 2d assembled parts is made with slits or holes, the dimensions of those should be calibrated for different materials due to thickness and mechanical properties of the materials, thus to make the design parametric the tolerance should be adjested for desireble material.
We worked on 3mm thickness cardboard as material for the laser cutter design, and we started by measuring the material thickness and testing for the suitable cutting parameters and the adequate tolerance, The specefic details and documentation of that can be found on - Ali Shukralla’s website
Laser cutting¶
I decided to make my laser cutting design as an assembled ship that I designed on Autocad however I had to change for a simpler design for I had a problem with parameterising the design.
The ship design was made on autocad which as an excellent program for the job however the parametrizing option is very complicated which can be described as manual because it requires to manually feed the program of which lines should be adjusted when changing the design and which ones should stretch along with angles and connections etc.., It ispossible that there is a simpler way but I am not aware of it at least.
the ship parts in Autocad¶
After that I resorted to transfer the file from Autocad to Fusion for I am aware of a method that allows for semi automatic parameterising the drawing, which it was convinient except for it caused missalignments of the the parts which is very difficult to fix, and due to limited time i have for finishing the laser cutting I had to ditch the design and make simpler one on cuttle.
The design was simple triangle with 3 slits and rounded edges to avoid weak point, The parametrising part was simply by adding a parameter from the plus sign here
and after naming it i can simply put its name in the dimension of any shape i need.
and after that I had my design ready
I saved it as a dxf file, emailed it to the fablabbh email assigned for the laser cutter
fablabbh.share@gmail.com
you can also get the design for yoursleft from here however I recommend trying another file type than dxf for the scaling is distorted when imported to machine in both designs.
To use the laser machine
1- download the design from the email 2- open it 3- press download after making sure the machine is on 4- on the machine set the origin point 5- on the machine calibrate the sheet height 6- on the machine press file and choose your design and press enter 7- on the machine press frame to make sure the borders of design are all good 8- on the machine press start
Also you should not look directly into the laser or leave it working un supervised
Vinyl Cutter¶
The vinel cutter was a very smooth and easy process, All I had is to find a simple png file for the shape i need, I found one I fancied then i made it into png using background removing website
The final results was this
then I downloaded the cricut app which is for the cricut vinyl cutter.
Heres the stops
1-
2-
3-
Upload the design then select and press add to canvas
4-
scale it up to desired shape
5- after pressing make it you choose themat option where i taped the vinyl piece on it then locked it in place
6- Adjust the postion you need on mat 
7- press continue
8-Press start from the machine 
and with the assistance i placed a sticky sheet above the design then transferred it to the back of my laptop
Gallery¶
