Week 3

COMPUTER CONTROLLED CUTTING

   ASSIGNMENT

Final Project

Group Assignments:

  • Characterize your lasercutter, making test parts that vary cutting settings, dimensions

 

Individual assignment:

  • cut something on the vinyl cutter
  • design, make, and document a parametric press-fit construction kit,
  • accounting for the laser cutter kerf, which can be assembled in multiple ways

This week's group assignment can be found here.

Getting started with this week's assignment, following tasks had to be done :

  1. Designing cutting file for Vinyl cutting
  2. Using Roland CAMM-1 servo for cutting.
  3. Parametric design using Grasshopper and Fusion360
  4. Laser cutting the design files
  5. Assembly

VINYL CUTTING

At Cept we decided to print on T-shirts for this week. We designed the print and cut it using a Roland CAMM-1 servo. I designed my graphics using Illustrator and exported the file to eps format.

 

 

 

 

 

FILES FOR CUTTING

Next step was to load the Paper on Roland CAMM-1 servo. The machine checks the roll and gives us the dimensions of the paper.

I followed the following steps to start the cutting. Please see the image on right for reference.

 

  1. Press Origin to set the origin.
  2. Press Force button to set the force, I set it to 230 since I had tried it earlier
  3. Press Enter button once the selection is done.

Next I started the cutting and once it was cut, I used it as a template and used colour to print my graphics on the tshirt.

  LASER CUTTING

Well I stated the assignment by understanding parametric Design.

When we Design for laser cutting we need to know the exact value for Kerf.

 

Kerf is the distance between two edges of your cut.

In Other Words,Laser Burns the material with the width of Kerf

 

To determine this, I made grooves with different widths.

 

 

 

 

 

FILES FOR CUTTING

I observed the following things:

 

  1. The kerf for epilogic mini is 0.2mm
  2. 2.5mm mdf fit best with the groove of 2.4mm

Having done this test, I decided to start my Parametric design. Well What I understood by the term parametric design is that we are making our 3D Model such that the Values we use for modeling should be easily editable. Instead of fixing a length or width, we can use value from parameters we have defined earlier To enter parameters or say global variables that can be used through out your design.

 

I used Grasshopper plugin for Rhino to design my geometry.

I added following parameters to my design:

 

  1. Radius, to determine overall size of the polygon
  2. Number of Segments, to determine the type of the polygon
  3. Material Thickness, to determine the width if the groove
  4. Kerf, if the machine changes and different Kerf value needs to be applied.
  5. Joint size, to determine the length of the groove.

Once my polygons were ready, it was time to start preparing for Laser cutting. Our lab had Epilog Mini.

I followed the following steps:

 

  1. Set the line-weight of all the lines to "hairline".
  2. Type ctrl+P or give print command
  3. Clicking on "properties" which leads to another window for adjusting properties to be used for laser cutting

Next select "Piece size" to 24*12 inches which is the bed size of our laser cutting machine.

And then click on "Colour Mapping" for other settings

Here are my cutting samples and assembly photos

Design and Cutting files

I have attached following Files

1) Grasshopper Parametric Design File

2) Cutting File in DXF format

GET FILE

LEARNINGS OF THE ASSIGNMENT

  1. Learned Grasshopper.
  2. Understood Prametric Design
  3. Laser Cutting Settings
  4. Vineyl Cutter
  5. Screen Printing.