Week 6 - 3D Printed CAM

Created a CAM mechanism for MAT238!

Using tangent lines, I created a teardrop CAM part for use in the CAM machine

Using the parts available from the class tutorial, I added a new square hole to add another follower for additional CAM part above

Using fusion 360's assemble function, I assembled the rest of the parts to move with each other, and added in the additional CAM part from above to fit with the hole. For this additional follower, I copied another follower and extended the height to create a small difference

The first many attempts at printing in the lab, the first layer kept slipping and not adhering to the surface. I decided that it would take too long with the remaining lab time, so I pivoted my box base

Since the box would probably take the longest time, I decided to laser cut it instead to save printing time. The laser cutting took less than a minute in total! I then decided to focus the rest of my time on getting successful 3D prints for the smaller parts.

By using a brim (as suggested by Professor Jennifer), I was finally able to get a stable first layer! I went from a 0% success rate to a 100% success rate after using a brim instead of a skirt

After printing out all of the parts, I discovered a few problems. First, since I was printing with a brim, it made it harder to have a "clean" part because parts of the brim were still stuck on the piece, making it hard to remove. Second, with a tolerance of 0.3mm on the Ender, it was very difficult to slide the CAM pieces onto the shaft. It took a lot of force (and slight deformation of the shaft) in order to put all three pieces on. Lastly, the cardboard box was much flimsier than the 3D printed parts, so the box was not stable. I decided that it would take too much time to correctly assemble and align everything, so the current pictures are the "finished" product. If I were to do it again, I would increase the tolerances a lot for the CAM parts to make it easier to assemble it in the first place!