Jorge Larach - Project 4: Desktop CNC

Process
Much like the previous projects, I started with referencing the tutorial. I chose my topographical area to be a road in Moab, Utah; a place I passed through on a spring break road trip a few weeks ago. I thought the landscape was insane so I thought it would be cool to make a model of that for this project. I followed many of the same steps, but diverged from the tutorial when I made the slots for the USB holder. I made a new sketch, drawing a rectangle with the same dimensions of a USB input, and extruded it to a point on the lower end of the topography. I wanted two of these slots though, but I didn't know how to move the location of the sketch to the second position, so I asked Dawson for help and he showed me how to do a circular rotation extrude, which positioned the second extrude a little further along the circumference of a circle within the topography. I made the extrude depth from a point about a quarter of an inch, which would be enough to securely position the USB in the slot. Afterwards, I followed many of the tutorial steps in reference to the tool paths needed to properly mill the piece. After I repositioned the box-origin point, I ran the simulation and got it confirmed by Dawson and Ryan. On Tuesday, I met with Dawson and learned the ins and outs of CNC milling, using the software, and keeping a close eye on the operation.

Result
Once the piece was finally milled, which took about an hour, I discovered a harrowing error. Although my USB measurements were accurate, I did not account for the rounded edges the tool bits carve out, which made the USB depressions too small. I then spent a good amount of time with a chisel, sandpaper, and some other tools to widen the hole enough to be functional. This part sucked. Eventually, I butchered my piece enough to accomplish this. Afterwards, I sanded out the rough edges of the piece and considered it done.


Reflection
Next time I work with the desktop CNC, I will ensure that any precise measurements I make will be padded to account for rounded edges, which is inevitable with the machine. I also spent some time at the start of the project generating a proper STL; I played around with vertical scaling to have more detailed topography, but I learned from the tutorial two weeks ago that this can lead to problems when it comes to generating the model's proper dimensions in Fusion. Overall, not working in the Create Form workspace in Fusion in this project was extremely refreshing, and I feel more comfortable working in the Sketch and Manufacturing workspaces. 



The stretch of road in Moab, Utah I used


Final model in Fusion


Desktop CNC after it cut my project


Final piece with modified USB slots


Final piece with the tools I used





Comments

  1. Dawson DurrApril 2, 2025 at 10:26 AM

    So glad to see that the USB spots worked! Great job Jorge, and really cool take on the topographic CNC project. I've never been to Utah (or many places with mountains to be honest), so I thought this topography was really neat. Keep up the good work!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ryan HodgeApril 8, 2025 at 8:50 AM

    Moab is a fun place if you dig the outdoors. Now when you store your USBs, slick rocks will roll through your mind. Once you get used to the corner radius limitation in all CNC routing and machining, the design process gets pretty fun, because you can make almost anything out of any material. You holder looks sharp and I doubt many will notice the bit of extra hand work done.

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