Exploratory Learning
This year Butler Tech Robotics has decided to do something a little bit different and learn a CNC router to add some flair to all of the parts.
The material we have been using the CNC router to cut is 0.1-inch thick aluminum.
We used that same CNC router to cut out custom-made parts by our class to fit the needs of our robot.
These circles are different tests we had done on the steel, the percentage is the power used, the millimeters per second is the speed, the single numbers mean how many loops were done to get the cut, and finally, the focal value(FLW) is how close the laser nozzle will get to the part.
To get a select few parts to specifications we needed to use a hybrid laser cutter. Our team used the boss laser HP-3655 to cut 20 gauge stainless steel to make a belly pan for our robot.
Since this is something new for our team there were some problems we would run into. One of the problems was that our team had never cut 20 gauge steel before. With this aspect being new we had to spend a few hours fine-tuning the power and speed of the machine to get a cut but also get the least amount of slag on the steel. As we learned the fun way, too much heat means the more slag there is.