Computer Controlled Cutting



For this week's assignment I used two types of machines for computer controlled cutting: a laser cutter and a vinyl plotter


Vinyl cutting

First step was to make a design of what I want to cut using the vinyl cutter. I came up with a very simple Idea of making a sticker of the FabLab Logo to try out the technique.
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Design:

-Having the .png file for the logo I imported it to Illustrator to get the outlines that I need for the cut.
-I did this by going to File open and then choosing my file.

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-Next step is to click on Image trace to trace the outlines of the object.

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-A drop menu appears and then I chose silhouettes .

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-This is how it looks.
-Next thing to do is to choose the view of the tracing result I chose outlines

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-This is how it looks like.
-Next step is to click on Expand as shown.

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-This is how it looks like after using expand.

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-Final step is to swap fill and stroke as shown bottom left corner or using the shortcut of Shift x .

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-Now I have my outlines ready but I wanted to be able to edit the lines for example remove the outer frame so I ungrouped all the objects.
-I selected everything and clicked on object and chose Ungroup.

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-Now I have my outlines ready to be exported.
-This can be done by clicking on file, Export and then Export As

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-I chose to export it as .DXF file.

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Cutting:

I used Silhouette Portrait Plotter along with SilhouetteStudio software to control with.


-First of all I imported the design file by clicking File, Open and then I chose the design file.

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-I chose the A4 paper size from the paper size drop menu.

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-Then I chose the cutting mat of the Silhouette Portrait plotter i will be using.

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-This is how it looks.
-I then scaled the logo to the size I wanted by selecting everything and dragging the corner arrow.

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-I added an elipse around my sticker using the elipse tool so I can take follow this cut to cut it out.

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-Next step is to set the cutting setting by clicking on the cut settings icon top right corner.

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Here are the settings
-Cut Mode: Standart
-Cut Style: Cut Edge
-Material Type: Vinyl
-Blade Type: Silhouette Ratchet Blade
-Tool blade adjustment: 2



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Final product:

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Laser cutting

I used Epilog fusion machine and I chose to use MDF wood of thickness 3mm througout this assignment. Before starting the designing process I had to detemine the cutting parameters along with the kerf of the material

Cutting parameters:

I started by looking up the recomended settings by frequent machine user in our lab to get an idea about the ranges of values of those parameters.
-First of all I tried power 100, frequency 20 and speed 10 --> the material was not cut all the way through
-Then I decided to increase the frequency by 5 so I tried power 100, frequency 30 and speed 10 --> It went slightly better the cut was a bit deeper but yet the material was not cut all the way through
-I examined the material and found that it needs less speed because almost one third of the material was not cut. this time I deccreased the speed by 1 so I tried power 100, frequency 30 and speed 9 --> decreasing the speed just by 1 improved the cut but still it needed even less speed
-finally I decreased the speed again and tried power 100, frequency 30 and speed 8 --> It went perfectly fine this time with those settings


Kerf:

After setting the cutting parameters I went straight to calculating the kerf.
-I did this by cutting multiple separate 1 cm square pieces and then measured their actual dimentions using a calibre. -I Found that the values of the square side are between 0.983 and 0.981 cm and the average value of the kerf is 0.018 cm. -Next step was that I tried to validate this result by doing a smal test of a joint.


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I drew the sketches of the kerf using fusion 360. This is how I did it:

-I started by creating a new sketch by clicking on File, New Design

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-Then I pressed on create sketch icon

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-I chose the top plan as my working plan by clicking on it.

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-I slected the 2 point rectange tool from the sketch drop menu.

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-I drew a 2 * 1.5 cm rectangle

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-Then I used the line to draw the diagonal so I can find the center of the rectangle

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-I added another rectangle of 1 * 0.3 cmm

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-I drew the other diagonal of each of the rectangles, added a center point using point from sketch drop menu and moved the smaller one to the center of the bigger one by selecting it and then right clicking and choosing move from the options. I chose to move point to point option from the menu in the lower left corner

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-Again using the line tool I drew the other part of the joint taking the kerf into consideration

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First Application:

I decided to make something in which I use bending patterns. I starting by drawing the sketch using Fusion 360
Sketch:
-I Created a sketch same as mentioned above and I used exactly the same tools as before to get to this:

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-Next step was that I uploaded the logo outlines that I made before for the vinyl cutting. How to upload is mentioned in week 2 assignment

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-I selected everything and copied the logo and then pasted it in my original file.

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-I scaled the logo to the right size using Scale under modify drop menu .

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-I scaled the logo to the right size using Scale under modify drop menu and then I moved it to the right place.

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-I dowlnloaded some bending patterns from Instructables and Imported them to Fusion 360.

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-I decided to use this pattern

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-I made a rectangle with the size I want around the part that I need and trimmed all the rest

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-I made copies of the pattern and moved them to their right places and then I removed the lines I no longer need

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-I Used the same settings I used for the kerf test
Power 100
Frequency 30
Speed 8


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-This is how it looks after cutting, I removed the inner parts and bent it into what it should be

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Final product:

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Second Application:

This application is for the press fit kit. I plan to design a 3D object, slice it using 123D Design, then cut the layers using the laser cutter and finally assemble them together

-I started by drwaing the side view of my object after creating a sketch same as before only difference that I chose side plan this time.

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-First thing I did was to draw a rectangle as rough outline

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-Then I added some circles to the corners using the circle tool from sketch drop menu I used 2 points circle. Also I trimmed the extra parts using trim tool from the same menu

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-I added another inclined rectangle and joined one of its sides using the circle and trim tool also I added some constraints to make sure shapes are placed correctly. This can be done by selecting the shapes that are to be constrained and the right clicking then and choosing the wanted constraint

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-I followed the same strategy and added more shapes with more contraints finally this is what I reached

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-Finally I extruded this shap by selecting and right clicking it and then choosing extrude

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-This is how it finally looks

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-At this point I more or less reached what I planned but I wanted to add some fillets so I tried doing this in Fusion 360 but for some reason it didn't work. I imported the file to Solidworks. How to import is already mentioned in week 2 assignment

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-I selected the edges I want to fillet after clicking on the fillet icon top left corner

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-This is how the final version looks like. I exported this as .stl to make it ready for slicing

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-I imported the file to 123D software to get the layers

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-Here are the settings I used
Units cm
Height 10 width and length were set automatically because of the uniform scale selection
Construction technique Interlocked slices
Method By distance
1st Axis 0.656
2nd Axis 0.735


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-I also edited the sheet size and the kerf settings by going to manufacturing settings
Length 122
Width 71
Thickness 0.3
Slot offset 0.018
Tool diameter 0.00


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-Finally I clicked on Get Plans to get the .dxf for the Laser cutter

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-I rearranged the pieces before cutting them to save some of the material

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-I intended to use the same settings as before but some how I mistakenly set the frequency to 20 instead of 30 so the material was not cut all the way through I had to apply some force to get the pieces out. Only one of the pieces break while trying to force it so I had to cut it again I used the correct settings this time and it was perfect.

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-Also one mistake is that I didn't join the lines assuming that they would be after exporting the file from 123D it took way more time that it should have if I had joined them.

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-Here are how the pieces look like before assembling them

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-I assembled the pieces using a hammer with a plastic head

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Final product:

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Downloads

-Drawing of Vinyl cut design
-Kerf test file
-Kerf Fusion 360 file
-First application design file
-First application Fusion 360 file
-Second application design files




Source code is licensed under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License v2.1 (LGPL).

Projects, drawings, images and videos are licensed under Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0).

Ahmed Abdellatif 2017