3. Computer-Controlled Cutting¶
Laser Cutting¶
During our group assignment, we familiarized our with the laser cutter to fine tune the Power, Speed and Kerf of our laser cutting machine. You can refer to our documentation on the Group Assignment page. Group Assignment - Computer-Controlled Cutting
For my individual assignment I wanted to make a more unique shape that can be used to build other things robots, cars, airplanes..etc. I will be using fusion to further familiarize myself with it.
Doing some quick research online, I found a feature in Fusion called Parameters, which will significantly help in easily changing the thickness of the slots we create in order to more easily change the design to find the perfect press fit with our material of choice.
Lets start with a block, and instead of setting a fixed measurement, I will create a relational one by taking the parameter and multiplying it. This way, if we change the thickness of the slots, everything should scale together and we would then make slight adjustments.
I can now create our slot, and again use our parameter, I also used the same parameter to define the depth and initially figured it should be 2 times the width of the slot.
Next, I just repeated the steps for the other slots, and then added a 3-point arc
To get the slot on the rounded edge, I had to deploy a few simple tricks. First is to run a line in the middle of the shape and then to draw the two halves of the slots. This is where the Parameter came useful again, since I used the expression (Thick*0.5)
Perfect! But, we have one issue, the slots edges are extending beyond the shape itself. But this can easily be fixed by using the Trim tool. So I went ahead and trim the excess parts, the slot part of the arc.
Here is the shape we got, but, I didn’t like how the shape was looking just yet.
I just changed the parameter and made some small alterations to reach this re-scaled shape. We can either trim the excess lines to avoid extra cuts, or we can extrude our shape and create a sketch on the face we want to export.
To test the different settings we can apply on one laser cut, I added a gear icon that we will laser etch on our design.
Lets cut this!
Whops! So I faced a few issues with my design. * The press fit was too loose. The solution is to adjust our width parameter * The press fit slots were to shallow. The solution is to adjust our expression which was set to (Thick*2) to a higher multiple * The shape itself was too big also
A simple adjustment of the parameter once again with some small alterations gave us this new shape!
Here is how I setup things to cut on the machine. I first imported our design
Next, I selected the gear shape, and reduced the power to only 10% and increased the speed to 100mm/s
Lastly, I changed the priority to first laser etch the design, and then cut the outline. This is to prevent our design from dropping down before the design was etched on.
Here is a video of the Laser Machine in action
Much better now!
This time around the press fit was just right, here is the final result with a sample airplane made only with the shape we designed.
Laser Cutting - Assignment Project File
Vinyl Cutting¶
Let’s start by downloading and installing the software I will use for the Cricut Machine
I decided to create a negative cut from one of my favorite games of all time, The Witcher, to begin with I searched the web for a shape suitable for the machine to cut.
On the Cricut software, we just need to upload the image
We will set it as a Single Layer
I also added a box around the design, so we can easily peel it off later
We used Attach to combine the box and the logo we downloaded
Here is how it looks now! Careful not to make the mistake I did and forget to adjust the position of the design on your material to be cut
I picked a grey color material, and fixed it on the mat using some tape
I followed the instructions on screen to select the right tool, and to feed the mat into the machine
Here it is cutting away the design
We slowly and carefully then removed the inside parts of the design to just leave the negative part and the surrounding box.
Here is the result!
Love it, but the issue I faced was the machine cut over the tape which caused the top part of the box not to have a clean cut. So i had to manually fix that part.
I also found that we can use the inside part as a second sticker if we wanted to, so I took the main emblem and used it for the inside of my laptop.
Witcher Logo Original Source Image Source of Gear Icon