CNC Mill
In this section of IDEA, we learned about how to operate the CNC Mill. For this project, Mr. Willauer gave us a prescribed brake part blueprint from a race car. He gave us a paper showing the dimensions of the part. It thoroughly described the length, width, and height of the diagram. The rest of it was up to us. Here is a similar example to the right.
Since our teacher gave us the design and blueprint of the part, there wasn't much pre-planning, besides figuring out how to start the 2d sketch of the part. At first I drew a rectangle and started cutting out the shape with the trim tool, but that wasn't efficient at all so I just started over. Since there are four circles in the part, I first drew the first four and then connected the lines of the four circles. After that, I needed to create small circles within the four circles to create the holes I would eventually extrude. Keep in mind that I am not worried too much about size because I will use the dimension tool to correct the size, height, and width of the brake part. After I drew all the basic shapes, I used the dimension tool mentioned above to accurately size my brake part according to the specifications of the sheet of paper Mr. Willuaer gave us.
After, I separately extruded the brake part and two of the circles, since they are a different height. Once I did that, I cut a portion of the two circles I just extruded since the blueprint called for it to be flat at the bottom of the circles
Once that was completed, our teacher lead us through a series of specific measurements and parameters in fusion 360, in order for our brake part to be read by the CNC mill and cut out correctly. Once we inputted the correct dimensions, we set up the toolpaths and ran the simulation with the stock on. To my satisfaction, the simulation was a success. Mr. Willauer had us leave a little bit of material at the bottom, so that we didnt mark the wood underneath the foam.
Since I successfully completed the simulation, I went down to the mill to cut out the brake part. I used a scrap of foam that was big enough for my part.
In this portion of IDEA, there was several lessons that I learned. One of these lessons is to always refer back to the instructions. I wasn't exactly sure on how to set up the CNC mill, and I called over Mr. Willauer, when I could've just looked at the material on weebly. It's important to figure out what your trying to learn, instead of always asking for help. If you do that, then you'll never really never learn the material, you'll just be really good at copying. Another thing I learned was that the specifics are the most important thing in engineering. My first try at the CNC mill, the bit wasn't cutting out the brake bracket correctly. I figured out that it's because the part is supposed to be 0.75 inches thick, not 1 inch thick. As you can see, just a tiny little mistake can change the outcome of the part you are trying to build.