This weeks project challenged us to explore computer controlled cutting, looking specifically at the vinyl cutter and laser cutters. I decided to split this week into two discreet parts: I wanted to learn how to use the vinyl cutter, and also to make a fully parametric design on the laser cutter.

Vinyl Cutter 

I followed this tutorial on how to use the vinyl cutter as a guide (Full tutorial on how to use the vinyl cutter). Fortunately I was able to find this guide on the exact cutter (from the instructables website )that I have available to be in the university: the Roland Camm1 Vinyl Cutter.

I Loaded the sheet of vinyl and then used the software to cut the design of two stickers as outlined in the guide. I decided to cut a windsurfer silhouette and a fern. In order to do this, I downloaded the images I wanted from the internet and then used Adobe Illustrator and the path trace tool to draw over the top of the image and get a vector outline for the images.

Once I had the Image outlined, I was able to setup the cutter and cut the design. I had to setup the machine by using the rollers to tell the machine the dimensions of the sheet and then Had to match the size of the print area on illustrator with the size on the machine. (see the tutorial for more information on setup)

 

Finally I cut the design and then used transfer tape to pick up all the detailed areas of the sticker.  I used a pair of tweezers to pick out the sections of vinyl I didn’t want on the sticker and then laid the top layer on the second orange layer.

For the parametric design section of this week, I laser cut some interlocking hexagons, however, I didn’t get very far with this aspect of the work and since then the corona virus has disrupted things so I am no longer able to access a laser cutter. because of this, I will use this section of the project as a theoretical design challenge. I will aim to make a table that could easily be lasercut and is controlled parametrically with interlocking joints in fusion 360.

In the screen recording, you can see the whole process of parametrically designing the table from start to finish. All the dimensions relating to the material thickness are referenced to one line in sketch 1. This means that you can change everything that needs to be changed for the design to change material thickness with one dimension.