Week 3 - Journal

Ideation

Tell us about your assignment's idea for this week. Why do you care about this idea? What inspired you? (Please include images or links to sources of inspiration)

This week's assignment was about designing a pen holder using Fusion 360 CAD software and exporting DXF files to fabricate it using a laser cutting machine.

By Searching on google I got Inspired by pen holder

Pen Holder (first design)

Pen Holder (updated design)

Tool Chain

Which software/machines/materials did you use in the assignment? Why?

Material:

Play wood (3mm)

Machines :

for laser cutting: Elmalky laser cut machine

Software:

for designing: Fusion 360.
for laser cutting: Laser work.

Laser cutting machine

Play wood

Fusion 360

Design/Preparation Process

Explain the design and/or preparation process of your assignment. How did you use the tool or software to design and/or prepare your assignment before fabrication/implementation?

I started to design my holder 2D on fusion360 the front side 150x 100mm and adding t-slot and X-slot
I made copy from the front making new component "paste new"
designing the side part 100x100mm and adding X-slot, T slot to fix the parts together
I made copy from the side by making new component "paste new"
I sketched the bottom part to fit with the previous parts.
I made all the sketches fully defined.
extrude all the parts to give them thickness 3mm
assembling all the parts to fit together and preview them
Select the sketch you want to export as a DXF.
Press the right-click button and choose (save as DXF).(Chose the part that I wanna save, click create, save as dxf, then choose the file where I wanna save it, and repeat that step with each part to save the whole model)
After exporting my parts to dxf files, I moved to laserwork to prepare my files for printing.
I adjust the speed and power of the machine to be ready for cutting.

Screenshots of my design

Sketch fully defined

T-slot in the previous photo

you can find all sketches here just flip the images.

Saving model in dxf format

I repeated these steps for each part in the holder

Development/Implementation Process

Explain the development/implementation process of your assignment. How did you use the machine/tool to manufacture or implement the design of your assignment?

I opened the rld file on the fablab PC to make sure that all parameters were ok ( for cut black color, speed:30- power:50)
I turned on the machine.
I adjusted the focus of the nozzle and tested it using the pulse button.
I determined the origin point using the origin button to start cutting from it.
I downloaded the file from the pc to the machine.
Finally, I ran the machine to start cutting.
The whole process of cutting

Overcoming Challenges

What kinds of challenges or problems did you face while doing the assignment, tutorials, or exercises? How did you solve them? Did you ask for help from an instructor or peer? Please provide a link to the tutorial or article that you used to solve your problem (if any)

Challenge: After cutting the holder I found that it was not stable because I did not design any t-slots so I redesigned it one more time and recut it.
Solution: The Instructor advised me to use T-slot.

I redesigned the holder and added T-slot, nuts, and nails-as explain previously in explain/preparation part-