{"id":474,"date":"2019-06-19T14:06:02","date_gmt":"2019-06-19T18:06:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/crosby-hall-knowledge-repository\/?page_id=474"},"modified":"2019-06-20T11:11:25","modified_gmt":"2019-06-20T15:11:25","slug":"operating-the-cnc-foam-cutter","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/crosby-hall-knowledge-repository\/operating-the-cnc-foam-cutter\/","title":{"rendered":"Operating the CNC Foam Cutter"},"content":{"rendered":"
The CNC foam cutter is a robotic cutting machine that uses a taut electrically heated wire to melt\u00a0through\u00a0expanded styrene foam such as common home insulation.\u00a0 The process can create decent surface finishes while maintaining good dimensional accuracy.\u00a0 Let’s go through the process\u00a0of cutting a foam airfoil from SolidWorks to finished product.<\/p>\n
First draw the part in Solidworks.<\/p>\nfoam cutting<\/span>Draw the part to be cut<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
and then create a drawing<\/p>\nfoam cutting<\/span>Create a drawing showing only the edges. Delete the format.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
The drawing should be 1:1 scale, have all the hidden lines turned off, the format deleted, and any dimensions, centerlines, centermarks,\u00a0and any other annotations removed.\u00a0\u00a0 The only remaining items should be the lines you are going to cut.\u00a0 This drawing should be saved as a DXF file on a flash drive.<\/p>\n
Now it’s time to turn on the hot wire machine.\u00a0 The power switches are indicated by the red arrows.<\/p>\nPower switches for the CNC hot wire machine<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nMotor driver power switch<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Once the computer is fully booted up start the DevFoam software.<\/p>\nStart the DevFoam program from the desktop<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
After the program launches hit FILE>New and import the DXF you created in SolidWorks.\u00a0 You should have a screen that looks like this:<\/p>\nChoose the region to keep<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Since we will not need the SolidWorks legal statement, click on the object you want to keep and then click “Keep only selected element”. You should be left with just your desired geometry.\u00a0 Clicking OK will bring you to this next screen where we will create the toolpath and set the part’s depth into the stock.<\/p>\nCreate the offset cutting path<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Clicking “Create cut path” creates the pathway for the hot wire.\u00a0 I like starting my cuts with the wire on the surface of a piece of foam and cutting downward.\u00a0 Unfortunately my model was draw in the +Y quadrant.\u00a0 This would result in an “air cut” rather than cutting the foam.\u00a0 To fix the problem a -.875″ offset was applied and the cut path was regenerated.<\/p>\n
Depending on the thickness of your foam you may want to change the feed rate of you wire.\u00a0 This control is under “Customize G Code or other cutting properties”\u00a0 Cutting through twenty four inches of foam 10 in\/min gave a nice surface finish.<\/p>\n
Cutting is not actually done in the devFoam program.\u00a0 You will need to save the cutter pathway as G-code, the universal language of CNC machines, before we actually do the cutting in Mach3Mill.<\/p>\nCreate Four Axis G Code<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Four axis G code is required to independently control the four stepper motors that drive the machine.\u00a0 Inside the machine the controller associates the horizontal left axis to X in the G code, vertical left to Y, vertical right to A, and horizontal right to the Z axis.<\/p>\n
The code written by Dev Foam should look like this minus the comments.\u00a0 Those were added for readability.\u00a0 The machine would accept and ignore them:<\/p>\n
G20 (Program in inches) \nG17 (Select the XY plane) \nG90 (Absolute distance mode) \nF10.000000 (Feed rate of 10 in\/min) \nM3 (Activate wire heating) \nG0X0.000000Y0.000000Z0.000000A0.000000 (G0=Rapid traverse to a\u00a0position) \nG1X0.000000Y0.000000Z0.000000A0.000000F10.000000 (G1=Perform cutting move at a feed rate of\u00a010 in\/min) \nG1X0.027567Y-0.287176Z0.027567A-0.287176 \nG1X0.143818Y-0.279064Z0.143818A-0.279064<\/p>\n
etc., etc.,<\/p>\n
After all the cutting is done …. \nG0X0.000000Y0.000000Z0.000000A0.000000\u00a0 (Rapid traverse back to the start point) \nM5 (Turn off the power to the wire.)<\/p>\n
At this point we can close devFoam and open Mach3.<\/p>\nReset and Zero X, Y, Z, and Zero 4.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
You will need to click the reset button to start using the program.\u00a0 Next click the load G-Code button and select your program.<\/p>\nfoam cutting<\/span>Load your G code<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
So far so good!<\/p>\n
Next we will need to position the cutting wire by jogging the machine.\u00a0 The machine can be manually moved using these arrows on the keyboard:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\nJog The Machine Into Position With These Arrow Keys<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Position the wire on top of the foam at the desired start point.\u00a0 Add a weight to the foam so that it will not shift while cutting.\u00a0 Lastly click the zero X, zero Y, zero Z, and Zero4 buttons.\u00a0 This establishes the origin for your program at the current wire location.<\/p>\n
Just about there!!!\u00a0 Now hit “Cycle Start”.\u00a0 The cutter should begin moving.<\/p>\n
The CNC foam cutter is a robotic cutting machine that uses a taut electrically heated wire to melt\u00a0through\u00a0expanded styrene foam such as common home insulation.\u00a0 The process can create decent surface finishes while maintaining good dimensional accuracy.\u00a0 Let’s go through the process\u00a0of cutting a foam airfoil from SolidWorks to finished product. First draw the part […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":890,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-474","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\n
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