The Laser Cutting Journey Begins
18 October 2021
CAD: COMPUTER AIDED DESIGN
At the end of this exercise, I should be able to:
1. Design a suitable product (keychain) for laser cutting.
2. Understand the importance of the Computer Aided Design.
3. Document the process of making the product through screenshots and simple explanations.
Our main Objective was to create a Keychain suitable for laser cutting.
Step 1: Selecting the top plane and creating my sketch.
Step 2: Sketching out a rectangle 65mm x 25mm.
Step 3: Using the "Fillet" function, I fillet the 4 corners of the rectangle by 5mm.
Step 4: Now, construct a line as shown then right click on the line and select the "Normal Construction Line" Option.
Step 5: The line will become dotted. Next, press the "dimensions" button on the top left area.
Next, ensure that the two lines highlighted below are 7mm apart.
On the center point of the line drawn, draw a 5mm diameter circle.
Step 6: Customizing your very own keychain.
Select text and type whatever you want to add on your keychain! When you have decided on your text, extrude the base of your keychain by 3mm.
YEY!😲😲 you have completed your very own keychain!! Hopefully you have learnt something through this week's blog, and if you did heh.. I have done my job 😋
Final Product😁😁
Reflection
In general, this week's lesson was a really go recap for me as after 6 weeks of not using Fusion360, I have really forgotten many of the basics to CAD. But thanks to the refresher conducted by the lecturers, I was not only able to regain my knowledge on the software, but I also realized the importance of CAD and how it can benefit me in the future especially for my final year project. This week's practical also gave me more opportunities to think out of the box and it really got my brain working, as designing a product for laser cutting led to many restrictions and limitations to our design. I used to think that CAD was just a "for fun" thing but throughout the lessons, I do realise how critical these skills are when it comes to designing. So next I will put in the extra effort during lessons to improve on my skills with Fusion and produce amazing products!
Designing My Own Phone Stand
26 October 2021
This week, we further deepen our knowledge on laser cutting! Learning about the different types of laser cutters and its properties.
By the end of this exercise I should be able to:
1. Know how parametric works and how to apply them.
2. Be able to design my own press fit pieces.
3. Make use of the joint function to connect my pieces together.
Our main objective was to create our very own phone stand using parametric and the other skills like press fitting that we have learnt during this week's lesson. (It has to be suitable for laser cutting too😃)
Before I started working on my design in fusion, I decided to sketch out my design to give me a rough idea of how it is going to look! I decided to go for a fairly simple design, making a "sofa" looking phone stand for my phone to "relax"😋, as if it is sitting and chilling on a sofa chair!
My phone stand design
Step 2: I then moved on to setting my design parameters by clicking the "Modify" and "Change Parameters option. For my design, I realized that I will have many press fits hence, a few parameters were needed.
I decided to go for 't' for thickness, 'l' for length and 'p' for my press fit size.
Step 3: Next, I sketched out the pieces that I feel will be required when making the phone stand before making them in Fusion360.
Step 3: Using the parameters that I have set in Fusion, along with my sketch of the pieces, I started working on the design and this was what I had.
Designing the pieces in Fusion was fairly simple as most of the parts were made out of rectangles, but the process was slightly tedious.
Step 4: Next up, I extruded my phone stand pieces according to the parameters set where 't', thickness = 5mm.
Step 5: We move on to one of the most challenging part for this practical, joining the components and bodies together. It was a really frustrating and raging process and it took me quite awhile to figure out how to combine everything together.
But in the end, I was able to joint everything up perfectly.
Reflection
To be honest, my brain almost exploded when doing this practical. But I actually learnt a lot from making this phone stand! I was able to develop a much clearer understanding on parametric and also learned many new functions in Fusion360! The joint function was definitely the most amazing one, it was so satisfying to just watch my design piece slot perfectly into the other pieces. I used to think that Fusion had a really limited amount of tools and options, but through the lessons and watching a few hundred videos, I realized how resourceful Fusion360 is! So next I would definitely make use of all these functions that I have learnt today to aid in my future projects and assignments and design an amazing product!
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