October 2016 ~ CNC Infomation System

Meme Monday

Here are some random 3d printing memes I saw on facebook :-)

3DRAG (aka Velleman K8200) is still being used in some projects like this one where it extrudes chocolate paste. Omnomnomnom...

Here are some Halloween decorations:

Here is the general overview of chocolate printing ... mmmm ... chocolaaateeeeee ...

Oh yes, bread and 3d printed nutella, breakfast of the champions!

TRENDi Maker V3 3D Printer

TRENDi Maker V3 DIY 3d printer follows the tradition of small machines with 3d printed parts. It is a RepRap essentially. It uses metal rods and other vitamins but there are no additional support elements lake lase cut parts other than 3d printed supports.

Project description:

This is my small 3D printer. It is not mini (A little bit smaller, than standard Prusa). No parts for laser cutting. Basic things You need to have in mind, if You want to make it:
6 mm smoth rods(relatively LM6uu bearings), M5 threaded rods for Z(2x 20mm M5 nuts), PC PSU 350W, E3DV5 (reworked) clone, Mega2560+RAMPs 1.4, Nema17 motors and Geeetech 152x152mm heated bed. My build size is XYZ 110x140x90mm. Z can be extended to 100-105 mm. X can be extended to 140 mm, if You want to lose 3 point bed leveling and to rework Y holder for heatbed.

Printer in action:

All files to make it can be found at:

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1850976

Smartfriendz Smartalu 3D Printer

Smartfriendz from France have a new open source 3d printer design. It is the Smartalu based on aluminum frame and a large print area. It looks very sturdy.

Printer description:

Taking account of reprap evolution, we are sliding to all metal construction frames, bigger printable volume and better quality.
This printer is 27x26x25 cm printable size, with all modules made with 3mm aluminium lasercut and some printed parts.
The structure is still our 20x20 aluminium frame assembled with bosh torx 6x16 screws and drilled profiles. We can't find a better system to assemble a solid frame.

Smartalu in action:

All files and instructions to make it can be found at:

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1846437

http://smartfriendz.dozuki.com/

You can also buy it as a kit for 645 euro:

http://smartfriendz.com/en/

SPRING Technologies presents award-winning software at the "Machining Innovations Conference for Aerospace Industry"(MIC) in Hanover

27/10/2016

SPRING Technologies is participating as an exhibitor in the 16th international "Machining Innovations Conference for Aerospace Industry 2016" (MIC2016). The conference will be held at the Hanover Centre for Production Technology (PZH) of the Leibniz University on November 23rd/24th, offering experts from industry and research within the aerospace industry a common international platform to discuss trends, challenges and innovations in production technology .

SPRING Technologies can look back on a long-time experience in NC simulation especially in the aerospace market and is also collaborating with leading research institutes in this area. Its solutions for NC simulation are in use at AIRBUS already since the 1990's and at many other aerospace suppliers worldwide and in the German-speaking region.

Reduced machining and programming times as a competitive advantage

At the exhibition area at MIC2016, visitors can experience NCSIMUL SOLUTIONS at the SPRING Technologies' demo-point. In addition to its high-performance machine simulation, optimization and digital tool management, SPRING Technologies will be also presenting its latest development, the innovative NCSIMUL 4CAM, winner of the "MM Award" in the category Software at this year's metal processing trade fair AMB and awarded also a few months ago in France with the INNOVATION Award.

Awarded with the MM Award at AMB 2016: Automatic conversion of CNC programs to different machines with NCSIMUL 4CAM - (© SPRING Technologies)

NCSIMUL 4CAM enables the automatic conversion of existing CNC programs with only a few clicks to new machines. Manufacturers won't lose time anymore with traditional and manual reprogramming operations, taking sometimes up to several days. This revolutionary approach opens the way to a flexible manufacturing, explains Herbert Schönle, General Manager DACH at SPRING Technologies: "Aerospace manufacturers face increasing cost and time pressure. NCSIMUL 4CAM generates ready-to-use and self-verified CNC programs for any machine and controllers. This enables manufacturers to switch fast and flexibly between their CNC machines and re-organize their production in seamless and integrated manufacturing processes." He proceeds: "As a result of our optimisation capacity NCSIMUL users profit from significant time savings also already in the single CNC programs. With a detailed analysis and optimisation of the cutting conditions and the removal of the material, on average a 20 % reduction of machining time can be achieved."

New production technologies for the aerospace industry in the spotlight at MIC 2016

The annually held MIC conference is organised by the Institute of Production Engineering and Machine Tools (IFW) Leibniz University of Hanover in cooperation with the Machining Innovations Network e.V. (MIN). The organisers expect more than 200 leading experts from aerospace technology to attend this year's event. The conference program consists of 4 sessions with expert lectures from industry and science about emerging trends, experiences and results in research. Among the presenting companies, there are for example, DMG Mori, Makino, PREMIUM Aerotec, Kennametal, Sandvik Coromant and SolidCAM.

Knowledge-Sharing and Networking at MIC2015 (©IFW)

A guided Tour in the IFW Laboratory, as well as an exhibition area and an evening gala are part of MIC2016. SPRING Technologies welcomes the attendees at its NCSIMUL demo-point at position A03 in the heart of the exhibition area.

3D Printable WW2 Enigma Machine Replica

Pascal and his students made a replica of WW2 Enigma encryption machine with 3d printed mechanism. It is a very interesting project and you will learn something more about encryption.

All the code, files and instructions can be found at:

https://pascalr2blog.wordpress.com/3d-printing/enigma-replica/

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1813308

https://pascalr2blog.wordpress.com/3d-printing/enigma-replica/how-it-works/

Here are two videos that explain Enigma machine and the science behind it:

Star Track 3D Printable DIY Astronomy Pointer and Tracker

Görkem Bozkurt developed an Arduino powered astronomy pointer and tracker that can be made on a DIY 3d printer.
It could probably be customized to move a small telescope or asrophotography setup.

He described his project as:

Star track is an Arduino based, GoTo-mount inspired star tracking system. It can point and track any object in the sky(Celestial coordinates are given as input) with 2 Arduinos, a gyro,RTC module,two low-cost stepper motors and a 3D printed structure.

Do keep in mind that lasers are dangerous and that there are strict laws against pointing at airplanes.

Very detailed build guide can be found at:

http://www.instructables.com/id/Star-Track-Arduino-Powered-Star-Pointer-and-Tracke/

NCSIMUL 4CAM wins award at AMB 2016 International

For the last three years, the German industry magazine MM MaschinenMarkt, has awarded eight trophies at the AMB 2016 international exhibition. The show, organized every two years in Stuttgart, is one of the top five in the industry. It draws 1,350 exhibitors from nearly thirty countries, all showcasing their latest offerings for machine-tools, new generations of precision tools and products used across-the-board by professionals in the machining sector. Many vendors were in competition for the different categories of 2016 MM Awards.

Why NCSIMUL 4CAM ?

The jury assessed the level of innovation on the strength of three main criteria :

Firstly and importantly, the offering had to be completely new or deliver a substantial improvement on an initial development ;
Secondly, it had to be revolutionary, rather than just an upgrade, in terms of traditional know-how ;
Finally, the eight members of the MM-MaschinenMarkt panel judged the solutions, not only on their intrinsic innovatory quality, but also, above all, on their real-world value in the industrial environment, taking into account the productivity increases actually delivered.

Of the 24 shortlisted businesses, the panel chose 8 winners, selecting one as "outstanding". Competition in the "Software" category, won by SPRING Technologies with its NCSIMUL 4CAM, was fierce, as prestigious rivals included Open Mind Technologies and Mitutoyo CTL Germany.

AMB 2016 – A video review of the award-winning innovations. (See the front video at minute 2:14)

http://www.maschinenmarkt.vogel.de/mm-maschinenmarkt-kuert-innovationen-auf-der-amb-2016-v-36961-12588/

For more details click here

2D Patterns in Grasshopper

This post covers building Grasshopper definitions for generating parametric 2D patterns. This includes using the built in grids Rectangular, Triangular, Radial, and Hexagonal. It also covers Voronoi patterns. Grid manipulation using attractor points, and attractor curves is covered. Finally, use of the Graph Mapper and Image Sampler is covered.

Rectangular, Triangle, Hexagonal and Radial Grids

This section describes a number of components for creating grid.

Rectangular Grid

A very common arrangement is the rectangular grid. This is created with the Rectangular component in Grasshopper. You specify a plane for the grid, sizes in X and Y for each cell, and extents in X and Y (the number of cells in each direction).

The cells are output as a data tree. For more information on Data Trees and their usage please see Data Matching and Data Trees in Grasshopper.

You can find the center of each cell using the Area component. It computes the area of each cell and also outputs the center point. This component is very useful in many pattern making definitions.

Triangular Grid

You can generate 2D grids with triangular cells using the Triangular component. The parameters are the same as the rectangular grid.

Hexagonal Grid

You can use the Hexagonal component to make 2D grids composed of hexagons. Same parameters as above.

Radial Grid

The grid cells of radial grids build outward from a center point and radiate in a circle.

Voronoi Diagram

A Voronoi diagram starts with a group of points in a plane. These points are called the seeds. The cells in the diagram are drawn such that all the points contained within a cell are closer to the seed point in the cell than to any other seed points.

You can use the Rhino Points command to place points on a plane then use the Grasshopper Voronoi component build the cells. Here's a simple example:

The Voronoi diagram is a dual of its Delaunay triangulation. This can be created with the Delaunay Mesh component. Make sure Display > Preview Mesh Edges is selected in the Grasshopper drop-down menus. The Delaunay triangle mesh is shown below in green.

You can automatically generate random points using the Pop2D component. There are sockets for the number of points and also a seed value. Different seeds result in different randomized point arrangements.

There is a socket for a Boundary which will form an outer edge to the cells. A convieient component for this is the Bounding Box component. Make sure that the Union Box option is checked:

Smooth Voronoi

The Voronoi cells are degree 1 curves (polylines). You can use the control points to build new curves which are smooth. This gives a different effect to the diagram.

The definition follows. It simply divides the Voronoi cell polylines into the specified number of points. Then these are used as input to create a new, smooth NURBS curve. You can add an additional Offset curve component to get some more space between them if you like.

Attractor Point

A popular pattern in architectural modeling and fabrication is the use of attractor points and curves. These distort or influence a pattern by exerting a force (often a scale) on the geometry based on the proximity of the parts of the pattern to a point or curve.

The Hexagonal component generates a hexagon grid. The Points output socket returns the centroid (center point) of each hexagon. This is used in the distance measurements and as the center of scaling of the hexagons.

The Distance component is the key to this definition. It measures the distance from the attractor point to the center of each cell. It outputs this distance as a list, one value for each hexagon in the grid. Normally, you want the geometry to scale smaller near the attractor point.

You also need to adjust the influence of the effect. This is done with the Division component. It divides the distance by a factor, shrinking its effect or area of influence.

Finally, you usually want to limit the effect to shrinking the hexagons rather than enlarging them (which visually breaks the grid). So a Minimum component is used to return the smaller value – the scale factor or 1. So anything larger than 1 will be set to 1 exactly. This keeps the distant hexagons beyond the range of influence at their original size.

Attractor Curve

Rather than a point, a curve can be used. It is the proximity of each cell to a curve which determines the scaling.

The essential component in this definition is Curve Closest Point. This takes a list of points as input (these are the center of each hexagon) and a curve. It returns a list of the distance of a hexagon center to the closest point on the curve for that center point.

In the provided sample Grasshopper file the curve is saved in the GH file. Therefore you can't edit it. However you can draw your own curve and then right-click on the Curve component and "Set One Curve" to use your own. Then you can alter it as you wish.

Graph Mapper

The Graph Mapper component is very useful for transforming a list of input values using a graph function. The following examples make this clear.

This definition uses a Series component to generate a list of values in the range 0 to 0.9. This list of values is fed into the Graph Mapper. It takes each value (which can be thought of as the X axis on the graph) and returns a list of values where they hit the Y axis on the graph. In this example below the graph is a straight line at 45 degrees. So the output value matches the input value. To make this graphically clear the X value is fed into a Construct Point component. The output of the Graph Mapper is fed into the Y value.

You can see the resulting points in the viewport - a straight line which matches the graph:

If you hook up a Nurbs Curve component it will draw a curve through the points as shown below.

Also the graph type has been changed. This is done by right-clicking the Graph Mapper and choosing a new type from the Graph Type fly-out:

Graphs usually have grips (small circles) which can be used to modify the variables that control the graph. Below a sine wave graph type was used. The grips have been pulled a bit to reshape the graph. The resulting curve drawn in the Rhino viewport shows the matching result.

The power of the Graph Mapper comes from its ability to map any range of values. You can double click the component to edit the expected input range as well as the desired output range:

Alternatively you can remap the input range to 0 to 1 and not have to change the range. You can do this using the Bounds and ReMap Numbers components as shown below:

You can compare the values in the two Panels. Note how the input range (0 to 18.36) has been remapped to the Target range (which defaults to 0.0 to 1.0). The Mapped value could then be fed into the Graph Mapper.

Colorize Cell Based Patterns

By adding three components it's possible to colorize the pattern. These components are Boundary Surfaces, Gradient, and Custom Preview. The idea is to create a planar surface from the closed curves (cells), generate a color for each one, then preview it in the viewport. Here's an example which also uses a Graph Mapper:

Boundary Surfaces is given the scaled geometry. It outputs a surface which is needed so color can be assigned. The Gradient component is fed the distance values as modified by the Graph Mapper and generates a color accordingly. Much like the Graph Mapper the Gradient expects values with a specified range. In its case between it's Lower Limit and Upper Limit. The color is then generated and fed into the Custom Preview which shows it in the viewport.

You can use the right-click menu on the Gradient to change to different built in color gradients.

Image Sampling to Modify Cells

The Image Sampler component lets you use an image file (bitmap) to generate data. In our case, this data can be used to modify a grid. Here's an example image and modified rectangular grid:

The grayscale value in the image is used as a scale factor for the cells in the image. White pixels generate a scale factor of 1.0. Black pixels scale to 0.0.

A grid of points is needed to sample the image. By default these need to be in the range 0.0 to 1.0 in both X and Y. Various aspects of the image can be sampled, for example individual Red, Green or Blue values or the grayscale value.

You can simply drag and drop an image file onto the Grasshopper canvas to create an Image Sampler with that image assigned. Double click the component to bring up its settings dialog:

Here you can set the expected range of values in X and Y. You can control how values outside that range behave (clamped, tiled, etc). You also set the channel used to sample in this dialog. If you check the "Save in file" option the image is saved in the GH file.

2D Patterns in Grasshopper