The first thing that I learned about slicer was that it doesn't really like small objects. It was much easier to slice an object at 1:1, and then scale the slices down to 1:100 afterwards, rather than scaling the object first.
The next issue with exporting from SketchUp is that it doesn't join any of the lines that it creates. It was worth going into Illustrator and joining all the lines as it reduced an 'estimated' laser cut time from 48 minutes to 14 minutes.
I am not totally familiar with Illustrator and selecting and joining all the elements was a little time consuming, but worth it in the end. It also gave me an opportunity to reposition all the numbers. It should also be noted that I added a cylinder through the middle of my model that I could use to position the elements when building the object after cutting.
I was initially intending to use wire or dowel through the middle, but they didn't work very well. Luckily a toothpick was exactly the right size.
The finished and assembled object, and it's comparison with the original foam model.
If I were to do this again I would use two integral guides to ensure that there was no twisting of the flat elements during assembly.
No comments:
Post a Comment