• Explained how you drew your files
• Shown how you made your press-fit kit
• Included your design files and photos of your finished project

Hello everyone! Since our Fablab doesn't have a vinyl cutter I went straight into making a Press-fit construction kit. For this week I wanted to understand both the machine and how could I use various programs in order to make the parametric press-fit construction.

I tried Inkscape for trying to design this parametric press fit construction kit. As an architect, I've had experience doing building models and love to be very precise before cutting. Since it was my first time working with Inkscape I couldn't figure out how to rotate with specific angles in order to make the parametric unions. Since I was not really used to all the interface my progress was rather clumsy.

I had experience with Adobe Illustrator therefor I tried to start with it. Adobe Illustrator uses Symbols the same way Inkscape use clones so I decided to start drawing hexagons and circles. But again I didn't have a real control of the geometry I was planning to design so I went to use AutoCAD.

I wanted my pressfit construction kit to be composed with hexagon and circles so I draw an initial geometry of piece with around the 5 cm and the parametric joints around 3.5mm (this decision was made based on the cardboard we would work with)

With a mockup of the circle and hexagon form I decided to make a 3D model of the pieces. This step would allow change any joints and see how the unions would perform. This model was made in Sketch-up very fast since this step in not required for laser cutting. At the same time I suggest to do it to save laser cut time and material. You will see I changed the with of the joints in the following gif. There reason for this was a matter of proportions.

After having the desired geometry I started to make the parametric form in Illustrator. With Illustrator you draw symbols, any modification to a symbol will be reflected all over the canvas.

Another alternative is make a "block" in Autocad...export the file to .dxf and you are good to go!

Here at the Fab Lab Santiago they already have a template that configures the machine for every type of material. Nevertheless I found that power used was too high for the size of the piece, this resulted into a possible fire due to the strength of the laser. I reduced the power to 35% using the same speed.

After the first attempt I realized that the joints were too wide for the size of the piece. They fitted together but the stability of the whole structure felt weak. The perfect fit was reducing the size to 34 mm (it was in from 36mm)

After another test, the joints were perfect. The idea of mixing a circle with joints inside the circle and not only the border gave my press-fit kit set a richer possibilities. My kit can rotate within the semi circle of make a solid hexagonal structure.

Files: