3. Computer controlled cutting¶
Vinyl Cutting¶
Thing we needed to do was to choose between two devices either the cricket cutter or the Silhouette Studio cutter as each one of them has it’s own software. my choice was the Silhouette Studio as the instructor (Noor) told me it had more options.
I had to download the application of Silhouette Studio
Download Silhouette Studio
Designing the sticker¶
The inspiration picture
The picture link
Insert the image and use the trace tool
Select the area to be traced
Delete a part of the frame using the eraser tool
after deleting a part of the trace it gets turned into different pieces which then you can select the unwanted frame and just remove it
since the trace is not made from different drawings you can just separate it
connecting the cutting machine to the laptop would show a detection notification
Since I will be using two types ov vinyl I will be needing two different settings to cut them therefore I can select a color for each piece and have different settings for it based on the color
Cutting the design¶
The cutting machine
We used this to keep the vinyls in place it has a sticky surface
we place the board with the vinyl onto the machine and align it with some arrows
The cut turned out to be too deep and it cut through the paper in addition to the strong adhesive on the board which caused the paper to stick too hard
Hero shots with Yaqoob of course
The final results
Laser Cutting¶
Group work link by Faisal
Designing part¶
to design the part I used Fusion360 as my designing software as I found it to be very easy to use and has a lot of options and possibilities. More over, a good reason I used this software as there are some skilled people around me that can help me and guide me when working such as Faisal of course.
firstly I made this stand design after having a thought of creating a flower pot stand
This is going to be the platform that is held up by four stands at the joints
To turn this fully defined sketch into a scalable design we have to use parametric measurements where we go to Modify and add a parameter and giving it a value. In My case I had to make two parameters, one that represents the thickness of the material and the other representing the scale of the whole design
using one parameter I write an equation in relation to the main parameter that I have. This case shows a parameter representing the base with a size of 50 and based on the sizes that I want to keep the same design shape I divide the dimension by the base size giving me a ratio to be multiplied by our parameter. Hence, changing the base size would change the scale of the whole drawing.
Note that the press fit size was determined based on the thickness of the material in this case the thickness of the cardboard our colleagues from other groups made some comb tests on cardboard to decide the optimal fit which is slightly smaller than the thickness of the cardboard itself.
The design download files
Cutting the design¶
the laser cutting machine has 3 ways ov moving based on the picture if looking from above it has X axis and Y axis which is the arm moving that could move right to left and up and down. The last way of movement is the Z axis which is the base underneath which adjusts the distance between the laser and the material we want to cut to match the focal point
The instructor AbdulGhafoor gave us the instructions of how to deal with the laser machine and dealing with RDworks as well as the safety measures to be takes such as safety glasses, how to deal with the emergency switch and finally the protocol when if there was any fire and using the fire extinguisher
this rectangle that was made as the demonstration
We used the rectangle made to do the focal point test where we place the piece on an incline and see where the laser starts to cut the material
based on the distance taken by the laser to start cutting the material and the height of the incline we can calculate the heigh that the focal point stays at which is estimated as lego piece at the lab to make measuring easier
This is RDworks's interface the software used to control the laser cutting machine and the drawing shown is the test of the power and speed ratio
The laser cutting process
this is the first prototype result which did not have as much structural integrity as the cross cut through the middle made it weak
The final hero shot having Yaqoob again of course with improve platform design where I did not cut the platform all the way through which made it way stronger and notice how the shape has two different settings one is set to be with a low platform and the other is high
Downloading the designs of the vase holder: