The Laser Cutter Roundup — a weekly dose of laser-cut love: #78
Hey, Sam here collecting the post from The Laser Cutter.
Above are laser cut paper invitiation lighted with LEDs from Eric Alba.
And remember join TLC’s Facebook page so you can submit you work to be featured through there!
After the jump, a star, the Chrysler Building, a beard, a lamp, a whole bunch of things, and a desk… (more…)
Want your own open source CNC mill?
If you’ve so far missed out getting your hands on the opensource kickstarted Shapeoko CNC mill there is some hope – Inventables who’re now the distributors are accepting pre orders for their next batch of 100 units. Demand for the ShapeOko has been high since their Kickstarter campaign. Depending on how keen you are to source some of your own components – there are several prices ranging from the basic mechanical kitset at $199 to the fully featured premium option at $999 that also comes with router cutters and materials. (more…)
SF Bay Area – a Design Inspiration for little and big things
We’re used to seeing locations and landmarks serving as inspiration for design and art around us. Think how much influence the Eiffel Tower, for example, or anything NY has had on so much of the styling we are exposed to. As a designer you may be particularly influenced by design styles of places you’ve travelled to or your own city that you commute through every day. One US designer has chosen his place of residence – San Francisco as a catalyst for his creative endeavours.
David Nichols of Dotmatrix Design takes major inspiration from various infrastructure and industry around the Bay Area. Conveniently located in same area, Ponoko has helped shape his creative process. David’s first project was a human scale model of SF Sutro Tower, “a local landmark TV tower that pokes through the fog of the city most days of the year”. He had the tower CNC routed out of plywood, and it will be making its way to Maker Faire next month as part of the Ponoko display.
David likes the challenge of using interlocking to produce 3D objects out of 2D shapes, so laser cutting and CNC routing are his ideal precision fabrication methods. He’d made a tiny model of the container cranes in the Port of Oakland and also laser cut maps of the Bay Area. Most of the objects he created are fabricated out of wood, either in plywood or composite form. Hardboard and MDF are some of David’s favourite materials to work with. The material choices allow for minimal finishing and easy assembly that doesn’t require adhesives.
A few words from the designer after the jump:
Or, how to be an absolute boss
Here’s a wonderful write-up on the trials, tribulations, and inspiring successes of Michal Zalewski’s 6-year journey into robotics. This well-written story is focussed on techniques for using CNC routing to create intricate molds for casting precision mechanical parts. Mouth-watering pictures after the break… (more…)
Time to go dotty with your CNC artwork
Halftone-styled images have a compelling power to them. Perhaps it’s the retro-nostalgia of 1960’s Pop Art, the grainy speckles of old newsprint, or maybe it’s something else entirely? Either way, there is just something about all those dots.
Evil Mad Scientists (you know, the guys behind the Egg-Bot amongst other things) have released StippleGen, a stand-alone program that converts any image into CNC-friendly SVG format.
There is a considerable amount of control as you tweak the algorithms, whether you are after a specific number or style of dots, or even a continuous TSP path. It’s all geared towards use on small CNC devices such as the Egg-Bot, but don’t let that stop you if you have larger aspirations.
StippleGen is designed to be easy to install, easy to use, and easy to modify. It is capable of producing excellent quality output with up to 10,000 points.
Click through to EMSL for a thorough run-down on just what this neat little software package is capable of.
via Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories
An experiment in interactive generative design
Inspired by the likes of Nervous System, Alan Rorie of Hero Design has created a generative software bookshelf application with Processing based on the voronoi pattern algorithm. The software allows users to determine variables such as overall size, shape and depth and then automatically generates the appropriate 3D geometry which can also be flattened and saved as a PDF in 2D for cutting out via the selected production process i.e. laser/waterjet cutting or CNC routing.
(more…)
Software for cutting images into materials with CNC… 
Software developer Jason Dorie has created a couple of Windows applications – Halftoner and Reactor that allow people to create halftones images for CNC routing from ordinary image files. They both require the Microsoft .NET framework, V3.5 (more…)
The $300 open hardware CNC machine is here. And it’s also a 3D printer!
Last summer, Edward Ford announced a Kickstarter campaign to support a project he had been coming back to for years: the most affordable desktop CNC machine ever, completely open hardware.
Edward’s project was over 700% funded, and he immediately set out improving his initial design. He also set up ShapeOko.com, and blogged about his progress along the way.
It’s been 8 months of late-nights in the garage, community feedback, sourcing woes, and huge support. And a few weeks ago the first batch of ShapeOko kits shipped out to his Kickstarter supporters.
ShapeOko looks a lot different these days than the previous laser-cut MDF machine holding a ballpoint pen. : )
Rhino tutorial on simulating wave patterns!
I’ve recently been checking out the Grasshopper forums where people have been experimenting with CNC milling fibreboard and plywood with wave forms. For those interested in creating these patterns there is a tutorial by over at Instructables by Brian Ottrogge on how to achieve some similar forms, without needing to fire up Rhino’s Grasshopper plugin. (more…)
Pocket-sized printing at a suitably tiny price
Even with the various DIY kits and systems available these days, the costs involved can be prohibitive for new enthusiasts trying to get set up with quality CNC equipment. But not for long…
The Piccolo CNC platform is a pocket-sized stand-alone device that will soon be available for under $70. This diminutive laser-cut wonder is capable of more than just plotting graphic designs. It includes Arduino and Processing libraries that enable the device to move autonomously or respond to sensors and data. Multiple Piccolo plotters can be programmed to work together to create large scale outcomes, and the platform is also just right for further experimentation in either 2D or 3D fabrication.
Piccolo is being developed by Diatom (who you may remember from the wildly successful SketchChair project) in a collaboration with Cheng Xu and Huaishu Peng from the CoDe Lab.
We are currently refining the Piccolo prototype into an open-source design that is simple, quick to assemble, and easy to use, and is entirely composed of digitally manufactured components and inexpensive off-the-shelf hardware.
Click through for a perky little demo clip of the Piccolo CNC-bot in action. (more…)
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