Making a cardboard-based kit
-
Circular construction kit cut out of cardboard
I laser cut my circular construction kit in cardboard. I was hoping to use the holes to mount some electronics to the discs but ended up running out of time for this assignment
-
Solidworks model of circular construction kit
The model was built parametrically by defining "Global Variables" in solidworks using its Equation Editor Tool. I used the material thickness as a variable to set the notch width. The notch was made by mirroring half of it to avoid having to do 2 sketch fillet operations as they destroy the line you fillet to (and no you can't fillet to a circle...). The notch then was made into a "block" entity and repeated 6 times around the piece using the "circular sketch pattern" tool.
Acrylic Light Cubes
-
Cute Acrylic Cube
2cm wide. Yes, much smaller than it looks. I cut the box out of semi-transparent black 3mm acrylic. I found that working in 2D for this is a lot easier than using solidworks. In fact, creating a patron for the cube allows you to easily draw the notches and tabs at 6 vertices between faces of the cube. The cube contains a white LED in the middle
-
Look, I light up!
I managed to squeeze a 3mm LED in the box. However, I had to glue the terminals of the LED to the holes to avoid the LED busting out of the box. I ran out of time before I could make a slightly larger version that would accommodate the LED better. The rationale for placing the terminals at opposing faces of the cube was to make the chaining of multiple ones easier. I also wanted to increase diffusion as I was initially planning to use an SMD LED.
-
Larger version
This version is 10cm wide and has paper to help diffusion of the light. The overall effect is not exactly what I was going for. I might try encasing the LED in hot glue next time.
Careful! When designing the slots and notches for press fitting in acrylic, ensure that you are much tighter. Also, you will need to estimate the amount of material removed by the laser. Experience with the Epilog seems to indicate that that dimension will change based on the mood of the machine that day.