Jay Salter Project 4: Desktop CNC

 Process: 

This project involved designing a piece on the CNC Router that would fit in a 6x6x3/4 inch area. I really struggled with this project throughout the brainstorming process as most of my original ideas either would not fit within the size constraints or involved details that were too small for the CNC Router to carve out. At the start of this process, I had decided I wanted to use topography that had some kind of personal meaning or history for me; however, this made finding an appropriate location to use the Terrain2STL tool on very difficult as most of the locations I have a strong connection to are incredibly flat. As such, I explored external tools such as CADMAPPER and SketchUp to try and create a model that would include a topographical map with buildings.

This produced some interesting designs including one of Trinity and one of my dad's hometown in England. I also attempted designs of two football stadiums in England as I wanted to produce this piece as a gift for my dad, and football is something we have both bonded over. Unfortunately, a lot of the details for these stadiums were lost in the CADMAPPER tool, so I decided to go back to the drawing board for my design.

The first draft at a design of the city of Peterborough in England

A model of Wembley Stadium in London

Despite my initial setbacks in the brainstorming and design process, I was inspired by the Wembley Stadium attempt to keep a similar theme for my final design. As a result, I wound up creating a design that incorporated a topographical map of central London (where I exaggerated the height differences and water level to ensure the details would remain visible) and then moulded it to fit within the logo of the England national team and incorporated the details of the insignia. 

England National Football Team Insignia

This design featured a lot of small details that I knew wouldn't be possible on the CNC Router, so I knew from the beginning that I would have to approximate several parts to ensure the overall image remained legible while working within the constraints of the tool. To begin my design process in Fusion, I imported the STL file of the City of London and began converting it to a regular body instead of a mesh. I then found an image of the England football insignia, which I simplified in Illustrator and spent what wound up being a significant amount of time correcting lines and ensuring it would work as a sketch in Fusion. 

After completing this process, I mapped the logo onto my topographical map and used the extrude tool to transfer details over to my final piece. I originally wanted to include details such as the star and the name of the team, but ultimately chose to focus on just the area including the shield as that would allow me to scale up the design and allow more details to be rendered. This process also took longer than expected as there were very small overlapping points that required cleaning up to allow the extrude tool to work. 

An early prototype of the design in which I was still deciding what areas to offset

After lots of testing, I settled on a design that indented the lions and accompanying details into the topographical map as I found that allowed me to highlight the topography and design without clashing too heavily. I then moved on the Setup process -- I set my first toolpath to drill a 2D pocket into the wood where the majority of the design details would be carved out, but this missed several smaller sections even using the smallest tool. However, on my second toolpath, a morphed spiral, I found that the machine was able to complete the topographical area while also carving several of the details missed by the first pathing. I finished my setup using a 2D contour to carve the design out of the overall stock. 

The Setup and toolpaths for my design

I then exported the design using the Post Process option in Fusion, and moved on to fabricating my piece on the CNC Router. I found the machine very intimidating at first as the software had dozens of buttons that I had no idea how to use, but one of the Makerspace student workers was very helpful in teaching me how to use the machine properly. 

Result: 

Fabricating my piece on the CNC Router took around two hours (including a couple issues where I had to recalibrate the machine to carve out the correct toolpath), but I found the final process to be quite relaxing as I could sit and work on other assignments while I watched the router carve out my design. It was enjoyable to see how my design was brought to life through each of the tools and getting to see how it matched the processes I had assigned in Fusion. 

The beginning stages of fabrication

After finishing my piece on the CNC Router, I noticed that a lot of my design needed to be cleaned up as the edges were quite messy where the tools struggled to capture some of the details. As a result, I used a dremel tool to go back through a lot of the areas and clean up leftover wood shavings and allow the design to be more clearly visible. 

Before cleanup

Mid-late cleanup

After cleaning up the remainder of my design, I am really happy with how it came out as the CNC Router allowed me to put in significantly more details than I was expecting and I can clearly see the logo design on the final product. 

Reflection: 

Looking back on this project, I am really proud of how my final piece came out, especially after the struggles I had throughout the brainstorming process and the initial design process in Fusion. This is the project I most struggled on, but I think it also showed me how to persevere past these obstacles and keep working on the problem until I could solve it. Additionally, this project more than any of the others I was able to source feedback and advice from my classmates, which made it a lot easier to figure out solutions to the problems we were all facing. Ultimately, I think this project has made me confident enough to use the CNC Router as part of my final assignment, so I look forward to seeing how that part turns out.