Manufactured Assembly
What I learnt: This project taught me a lot about CyberCut which can be seen by following the link above. It was good to get a general overview of the more common manufacturing methods. A good understanding of all the methods is useful so that you can decide which method is best for the specific application. But despite knowing about the process, actually getting a part made is a different story because you have to be very comfortable with the many different CAD and interface systems. CyberCut is good in the sense that it almost eliminates the concerns of holding down the part. LaserCamm's simplicity, accuracy, and usefulness make it a really good machine and it is unfortunate that we don't have one here at CMU. There are many simple 2D parts that LaserCamm could be used for. We had to use FDM to make the standoffs which a waste or time and money when a LaserCamm could have simply removed less expensive material much faster. Having a good knowledge of all the processes is really useful, but the old fashion plug and mold method should not be overlooked. From working on the 39-606 Asthma project we learnt that despite all the fancy Cad and prototyping systems that to make an aesthetic, smooth, complex (bronchioles of a lung) shape it is still sometimes much easier to make the prototype by hand. However, in the future a more reproducible method will need to be implemented, this will still most likely involve pouring into a mold. We found the company Smooth-On to be an extremely valuable resource.
Getting the Part Manufactured: We made the file discussed in the earlier section and simply gave Cem the file. He took care of the rest. FDM is a fairly self-sufficient system so all we had to do was check up on it and then remove the part in the end. Several of our standoffs we warped due to the pliability of the soft, warm material. The fact that there were so many variations from part to part make it unreliable at best. Also the surface finish was lacking. These parts took the better part of a day to be made, while many other processes could have made these in a fraction of the time. These to issues are huge constraints on the FDM machine
created by Mike Stow