visit to CICATA

last week we went to CICATA for a visit with DR. Eduardo Castillo, he explained us a little about the work they do there. He created a new way to measure the volume of small objects without any physical contact . It cosists of a system of a pedestal and a camera. The camera takes a picture in 18 different possitions and every view is proyected so the area that intersects in those 18 views creates a volume an with a program of math lab they made some mathematical operations to calculate the exact volume. The margin of error is minimum and the experiment was a success. It was a very interesting visit

router and z print

last week he have a visit of the proffesor alejandro acuna, who explained us how does the archive for the router should be, he told us that these must be in lines , in 2d made by programs like autocad or illustrator, distance between paths must be 2 centimeters apart and 2.5 of margin.
When the file is ready he uses a program to divide paths into areas with different colors to divide what the machine will do. then it is ready to be cutted. The machine can cut materials like wood, plastics and metals.

the z print is a different machine, this one actually prints 3d objects, first you need to have your file validated as an stl with no open edges then you uploaded it to the program and place it in the space, generally it should be on the bottom and left of the space , we made rings that could be conected one with another. Once they are printed you must carefully remove them from the dust and put a coat of a special resin to make them more resistant and thats it.

steps 13 to 15

STEP 13

Now you are going to select the area which you want the roland to do the finishing. We only choose one hammer this time for it to be quicker

STEP 14

Now its time to choose the route that the tool will follow. We choose lines of exploration on X axis you can also choose Y axis

STEP 15

Now just name the process and it must look something like this one. Your are ready to save your file and go to the Roland to star working

steps 9 to 12

STEP 9

Now its time to choose the route that the tool will follow. We choose lines of exploration on X axis you can also choose Y axis

STEP 10

Now just choose a name for your process. We called it rough machining 1. And your result must look like this one

STEP 11

Now its time for the finishing process. Click on new process again and choose finishing.

STEP 12

Now you have to choose the tool that will do the work. We choose a 1.5 ball for this process.

STEP 5
Once your file has been approved by the viscam view program you are ready for the modela player 4. Open your file in this program.
Choose the material you will be working with. In this case we are using soft wood.

STEP 6

Now its time to choose the face in which you will work. Choose a superior view like the one shown. The icon is the green face next to material

STEP 7

Now click on new process and choose rough machining process and the next

STEP 8

In this step you must choose everything on depth and area to work, because we
Want all our hammers to be rough machining.

manual for roland and z- print files STEPS 1-4

STEP 1

First of all you need an object to model.
You can do this in programs like Rhinoceros
Once you have your modelation ready you can start the process.
We did this hammer handles which will be our example for this handbook

STEP 2

Now you have to open the icon called mesh. Once on mesh you open the first option which is mesh from surface or polysurface and then select all the surfaces that you will be working with. Then in options of polygonal mesh you select how many polygons you want in your mesh, the more you select the quality will be better but the file will be heavier. In this case we select less than half polygons

STEP 3

Now you are ready to export your file. Go to the archive menu and select export selection and choose stl (stereolitography). In options of exportation create a tolerance between .01 and .001 this will also affect the weight of your file.
Click on the binary system. Now your are ready to go to the viscam view program

STEP 4

Open the viscam view program and open your stl file. Here you will see how many unmatched edges does your file has. For Z-Print its very important that your file doesn't have any, for Roland this wont be a problem. Just check that the number of polygons haven't affect the quality of the surface of your object

how to repair a stl file

there are many ways to repair a stl file.
in Rhino these ways are grouped in four categories which are: display, remove unwanted details, display and close gaps and offset. Many times when you need to offset a piece so you have a solid part and not a surface parts of the piece will be double and to use that file in the z print will turn to a mistake so you need to check and repair your file before you send it to print. to accelerate the process.
some things are going to be more complex than others. to me its easier to close a gap for example than to do a offset without repeating faces.