Board to be Wild

CNC Machine Overview

The CNC machines were firstly developed in Massachusetts in the 1950s but only became truly used with the invention of the Shopbot in the early 1990s. It was an affordable version of a CNC machine that small business and individuals could use. The Shopbot use a software known as CAD (Computer-Aided Design) to create the cut path using translatable instructions created in CAD. To cut the material the Shopbot uses two types of bits: drill and router. Drill bits are used to cut holes directly through the board while router bits are used to cut into the material and make designs in patterens into the surface. Another important factor is the speed and the feed. Speed is at what speed the bit is rotating at while feed is the rate in which the bnit goes into the board.

Refrence Image and Design

Cutting the Boards

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Aspire

Tutorial

To learn how to use the Aspire Software we watched a video where we made a board and made through cut toolpaths of ovals. It was a bit tricky since I was unfamiliar with the terms used throughout the video but with a bit of help from Max Colaco I was able to

Design Process

To bring my design to Aspire was a process I like to call "Try and Redo". The idea is to try a change and if it looks better keep it and if it fails undo. The reason for using this method was my lack of knowledge in how the software works and my ignorance in seeing if their is a video explaining the process. Due to this though I am unable to explain my exact steps and was also unable to help others who also were trying to import unique designs.

Toolpath

I have had a rough time with the toolpaths. In the beginning it was easy, I picked a pocket tool path and went half an inch deep. I ran into a few issues when I tried to cut. The one that caused my first board to end up with a giant hole in the middle was that when I selected the Z off set the default settings where to the material surface when they needed to be to be to the machine bed. The other issue I would've encountered was that due to the depth of my cut the 1/8th bit would be unable to cut the half inch depth that I desired.