MOLDING AND CASTING
For this week assignment we have to design a 3D mold, machine it, and cast parts from it.
Design a 3D:
I decided to design a cube made from two pairs of pieces, I draw it in Autocad , as later I have to machine it I did all rounded corners .
I did a mold of two parts, leaving two channels for air exit and another to get the resin.
Machining:
I did 3 files of cutting:
- The first one to cut a rectangle in a big piece of wood to fix the wax to the machine, our CNC machine is the TEC-CAM 1003 CNC and the fixturing system that we use is vacuum, the machine is divided in four quadrants so we put a piece of wood covering two of them to get a better fixturing.
- The next file was a rough cut to extract wax. I used a 6mm End Mill and a roughing strategy Z level.
- For the final cut I used a 3mm End Mill and an area machine strategy raster.
Wax:
I put spray vaseline in the wax piece.
Silicone:
I mixed the silicone and poured it in the wax piece.
Polyurethane resin:
It was not so easy so I had to do a few pieces until I got it.
Final result:
Extra work:
For assignment week I used the TEC-CAM 1003 CNC because it is faster than the Rolland mill MDX-20 but I could use also the Rolland mill MDX-20.
If I wanted to use the Rolland mill MDX-20, the cutting procedure would have been as follows:
The program that the Rolland mill uses is fabmodules (link)
To do two types of cutting:
- Rough
- Finish cut
Rough:
Imput: mesh (.stl)
Output format: Roland mill (.rml)
Process: Wax rough cut (1/8)
As I draw the file in mm: units/in= 25.4
And we press
Calculate height map
And we get the following map and we choose again the Rolland mill and the Wax rough cut and press calculate to see the cutting path:
My computer is too slow with fab modules so I had to continue the calculation in one of our fab lab’s computer.
And if we wanted to send the file, we do the zeroing and send it.
To do the final cut:
Imput: mesh (.stl)
Output format: Roland mill (.rml)
Process: Wax final cut (1/8)
Calculate height map
And if we wanted to send the file, we do the zeroing and send it.
