INDIVIDUAL 3

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WEEK ·3·

COMPUTER-CONTROLLED CUTTING

INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENT

ASSIGNMENT 1. Cut something on the vinylcutter 2. Design, make, and document a parametric press-fit construction kit, accounting for the lasercutter kerf, which can be assembled in multiple ways

VINYL CUTTER

CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE VINYL CUTTER SETTINGS

I made the design in AutoCad. I drew the lines with the option polyline because otherwise the object doesn't move as one.

I really thought the vynil cutter was going to be pretty easy. Gonzalo (our FabAcademy Instructor) did it without problems and explained the steps.

The vinyl cutter also has some settings for cutting. We used force: 120 and velocity: 5 and we had no problem with the cut.

I put my picture in PNG. I did the design in Adobe Illustrator and decided that I was not going to waste any part of the vinyl that's why my design looks like this.

When I put the image in the program of the vynil cutter it did not have the starting point well referenced. the machine start cutting far from the edge and I lost material.

The next time the design came out too big

I work on Inkscape, Paint and CorelDraw to change the origin point.

This time everything went well.

Once the design on the vinyl cutter came out, you have to place on transfer the part you will stick on the chosen surface

Once we place the transfer is recommended to cut the edges straight, this helps us to have more control of the position in which we will place the vinyl

Gonzalo (our FabAcademy Instructor) asked us to put a vinyl in our locker so I did it again but in black.

5 - 11

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LASER CUTTER: PRESS FIT LAMP

CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE LASER CUTTER SETTINGS

Having the tests of cut of different materials I decided to work with mdf of 3mm. I decided to make two press fit kits. The first kit would have pieces that would assemble a lamp (to go exploring my final project) so I started designing the pieces.

I had no problems cutting the laser parts as I had the right settings for this material. The tests we did saved me a lot of time.

I did not leave the cutting process unsupervised. (Besides it was the first time that I cut something with laser and I did not wanted to miss any part)

The process was over and as far as I could see everything had gone well.

The pieces came out very easily so the settings chosen were fine.

In the same way I cut the two rings that would hold all the pieces.

I had to remove the pieces very carefully because there were small cuts.

I got all the pieces I designed.

I had problems with some pieces where the laser did not cut all the thickness of the material and if I forced it, the piece would be damage. So I had to cut new pieces. I learned that if you review the laser or have double line in the drawing the laser will eat more material and completely vary the width of cut you wanted to obtain.

The assembly is quite simple as each piece has grooves to fit.

With a little pressure at the end the piece enters full and does not move.

1 - 11

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1 - 10

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LAMP : ASSEMBLING THE PARTS

CLICK HERE to see the design process made in week 2

PARAMETRIC DESGIN

1 - 16

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LASER CUTTER: PRESS FIT CONSTRUCTION KIT #1

In the university where I work we have an event called "Open" where schools students attend to find out about the careers to which they wish to apply. This year we had a space where students could make compositions with pieces as shown in the photo. This inspired my design of the press fit construction kit.

I started drawing a piece in Autocad and decided to go for the hexagon to achieve more complex compositions.

I worked with a single initial module and replicated it.

Here we see the laser cutter working on my initial pieces.

Although I put the settings we tested in group, the mdf 3mm was not cut easily. Here I learned the importance of cleaning the head of the laser cutter. You can place the settings correctly but if the head of the laser cutter isn´t clean it will not do a good work.

Once I cleaned the head of the laser cutter all parts were cut well.

But I had an error in the drawing of the pieces I forgot to erase some lines. The laser cutter recognizes all the lines as cutting indication. Some pieces had to have the cut in and others to have a piece that protrudes.

I had to make my pieces again but next time they went well.

With these pieces I started building something, but I realized that they were very large pieces and it would take too long to cut more pieces to do something. So, I decided to change the design and that's how the kit #2 came along.

9 - 9

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LASER CUTTER: PRESS FIT CONSTRUCTION KIT #2

I decided, from the experience of kit # 1, that the pieces should be smaller to allow flexibility in the composition. I also designed two pieces of assembly that allowed to join the pieces in angle or straight.

I tried to optimize the material and for this I placed the largest number of pieces at the shortest distance. This made it difficult for me to remove the pieces. I advise that when working small parts the speed should be lower and power at 100.

The pentagonal modules were larger than the assembly pieces so I had no problem removing these pieces.

This is the total of pieces that I got from the two mdf formats of 60x30cm. The pieces were design parametrically, all the press fit joints can be modify at the same time.

The first thing I did was try to build a dodecahedron but I knew I could not stay in this, I wanted to explore something more complex and if possible it should work as a lamp screen.

As I arranged the lamp screen, a new element emerged in the composition, the shadows.

Placing the assembly pieces became a key factor in composing with the shadows.

Here we see the lamp screen and the shadow projected.

This is another view from the projected shadows.

This will be taken into account for my final Project: while working with modules, the final result, will always be a surprise.

10 - 10

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·BONUS· LASER CUTTER: ACRILIC NECKLACE

I really enjoyed working with the laser cutter, especially for the possibilities you have for composing in 3d with 2d parts. So I decided to try to cut something in acrylic and decided to do something small, a necklace pendant.

The settings chosen for acrylic worked well.

All the cuts came out very clean.

Final piece.

Necklace in use.

5 - 5

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