For project #2 I wanted to build a phone stand that had an area to place my phone on one side and then an artistic piece on the other side. Since Easter is coming up, I wanted the artistic side to be a sculpture of an Easter Island statue. Basically I tried to combine the two ideas below into my own design.
Image taken from: https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1070911/easter-island-why-moai-head-statues-there-stone-heads
My Fusion 360 design is shown below with the links for the top part here and the bottom part here.
The top part has my Easter Island sculpture on the front side and then a slanted slot on the backside, where a phone can be placed. The slot on the backside is for a charging cord to be run through. I initially wanted it to be able to hold a phone vertically or horizontally.
When I performed the CNC cutting on the X-carve I encountered several issues. The first problem was setting up my origin locations and stock size correctly so that I when I flipped my piece to perform the milling on the back side everything would line up. To fix this problem I had to go back into my stock setups and readjust my origin locations. Since I was worried about the stock being different between my tool paths I decided to create an object that was the appropriate size for my stock. This allowed me to just select this object as my stock volume everything I made a new stock setup.
I also had problems finding a 3D path within the Fusion 360 manufacturing mode that would mill out all my design's features correctly. I first tried using the contour method but found that it would not include the bottom rectangular mating block as part of the tool path when I tried to mill out the back side of the phone stand. To overcome this issue I had to use the adaptive 3D milling tool path. The one downside to using this function is that it doubles the milling time that would be required if a had simply used the contour function. I think overall I spent 7 - 8 hours in milling and fixing my design.
The major problem I had when I tried to CNC my design was an incorrect z-level probing on the X-Carve. I think the X-Carve misread the z-level of my 2" foam block because when the probe was placed onto of the foam there was not much travel available for the X-Carve to probe down. This caused the machine to try and probe up past its upper z-level trigger and thus read the z-level ~0.25" off of what it should have been. Because of the z-level offset the CNC milled a ~0.25" deeper then I had designed. Dr. Ugolini had a similar problem and he said that after many attempts he figured out that manually setting the x,y,z locations did a pretty good job at fixing this z-level offset problem I experienced.
The top part has my Easter Island sculpture on the front side and then a slanted slot on the backside, where a phone can be placed. The slot on the backside is for a charging cord to be run through. I initially wanted it to be able to hold a phone vertically or horizontally.
When I performed the CNC cutting on the X-carve I encountered several issues. The first problem was setting up my origin locations and stock size correctly so that I when I flipped my piece to perform the milling on the back side everything would line up. To fix this problem I had to go back into my stock setups and readjust my origin locations. Since I was worried about the stock being different between my tool paths I decided to create an object that was the appropriate size for my stock. This allowed me to just select this object as my stock volume everything I made a new stock setup.
I also had problems finding a 3D path within the Fusion 360 manufacturing mode that would mill out all my design's features correctly. I first tried using the contour method but found that it would not include the bottom rectangular mating block as part of the tool path when I tried to mill out the back side of the phone stand. To overcome this issue I had to use the adaptive 3D milling tool path. The one downside to using this function is that it doubles the milling time that would be required if a had simply used the contour function. I think overall I spent 7 - 8 hours in milling and fixing my design.
The major problem I had when I tried to CNC my design was an incorrect z-level probing on the X-Carve. I think the X-Carve misread the z-level of my 2" foam block because when the probe was placed onto of the foam there was not much travel available for the X-Carve to probe down. This caused the machine to try and probe up past its upper z-level trigger and thus read the z-level ~0.25" off of what it should have been. Because of the z-level offset the CNC milled a ~0.25" deeper then I had designed. Dr. Ugolini had a similar problem and he said that after many attempts he figured out that manually setting the x,y,z locations did a pretty good job at fixing this z-level offset problem I experienced.
As you can see in images below the side walls are thinner then I had intended and there are now eye holes where there should have just been pockets. I did test it with my iPhone and even with the thin sides my design was still able to hold my phone when it was laid down sideways. I wish that the side walls were not as thin but I am happy on how the Easter Island face came out on the front side of the phone holder.
In order to mill the design on both sides I needed a way to flip the design over while remembering the previous origin location. At first I was going to use wooden dowels, but I changed my mind and instead routed out a piece of wood that matched the perimeter of the back side of the phone holder. The images below show the CNC process over time as the Easter Island face was milled out of the top side of the phone holder.
Overall, I am pleased how well the wooden holder worked for milling the back side of my design. Everything milled correctly in the x-y plane, just not in the z axis. If I had more time I would go back and re-milled my design in order to fix the z-level problem I had when I first tried. I also would decrease the volume that the adaptive milling function had to mill away. This would help decrease the time it took to CNC out my design.
-Sean Farrell
Project 2 Costs:
Design Time: 4.5 hr (x $10/hr) = $40
Material: (Home Depot 1"x 4' x 8' = 4608 in^2 at $19.98) used 2" x 8" x 12" (192 in^20 = $0.83
Total (foam prototype): $200.83
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