Group Assignment

Lab Safety training
Characterize your lasercutter's focus, power, speed, rate, kerf, joint clearance and types

As part of the group project, we learned the basics of laser cutting and went through machine training for safe use. For GCC, we used 4mm cardboard to characterize lasercutter. With lower speed and higher power, the cardboard will be cut deeper. We however should also be careful not to make speed too low or too high power, as it can lead to the cardboard burning and causing fire! We discovered that the ideal setup is speed 2.8, power 100, and ppi 200. After finding the ideal setup, we started to test out different kerf and joint types. We made a comb-shaped print with and without chamfers. We determined a kerf of about 0.172mm (set kerf to be 0.2mm for simplicity), but also found that there’s a 0.1mm offset between the designed parameter and actual cut. So accounting for the kerf, we set the thickness to 3.7mm for the joint for a tight fit. For the types of joints, we experimented with press-fit, chamfer, snap-fit joints.

Individual Assignment

Laser Cutting

Design, lasercut, and document a parametric construction kit, accounting for the lasercutter kerf,
which can be assembled in multiple ways

I initially got training on the GCC Spirit GLS-30V machine, but due to a lot of people using the machine, I was separately trained on the Epilog Legend 36 EXT 120 Watt Laser machine. For the Epilog machine, I determined that speed 30, power 70, and frequency of 2500 is best for vector cutting, and speed 50, power 80, frequency 2500 is best for rastering. Based on experience, the speed can go a bit higher and power little less, but certainly with speed around 20 or power above 90 started a bit of fire (I was luckily trained on how to deal with such situation). When I was using Epilog machine, I used around 3.7mm thickness cardboard, so I re-created the comb ranging from 3.4 to 3.7 (I also previously did larger than 3.7 and was very loose). For a tight fit, I determined to use 3.5, but 3.6 also worked decently. I determined the kerf to be around 1.6mm, after comparing what was cut by the laser and the original design on CAD.

I successfully created a construction kit using cardboards!

Construction Kit!

Vinyl Cutting

Cut something on the vinylcutter

For my individual work on cutting with vinylcutter,
I decided to create a sticker of my lab for my laptop!

Project Management

Read, sign the student/instructor/lab agreements, and commit to your repos work through a git tutorial
Build a personal site in the class archive describing you and your final project

I was able to figure out how to create a website using GitLab and html etc, how to style them, and have version control!