Setup

• Create a designpart layer and a primitive layer, it may be helpful to make them different colors (but don't use red, green, or yellow]
• From the View menu, bring up viewpoint, modifyII, and solids toolbars
• Turn on grid/snap in drawing aids and object-snap-settings in the tools pull-down menu
• Coordinates input as x,y,z are absolute, coordinates as @x,y,z are relative
• Use the point filter feature to capture identical planes of x, y or z from a point- use the middle mouse button to get menu, right to select the point
• Type arx to load Mike's arx-or keep a copy on your desktop and drag and drop it in

Make a part

• Make designpart layer current
• Draw each 2D part on the xy-plane, these are now regions or surfaces
• You can draw rectangles, circles etc. on at different z heights by changing elevation before choosing coordinates for the corners
• Change to an isometric view (makes it easier)
• Extrude in the z dimension, this can be positive or negative and the coordinates you give it are absolute
• Your Autocad design must fit between 0 and 1.25 inches

Autocad will only extrude regions, so if your 2D sketch isn't a closed region--make it one

Turn part into primitives

• Make primitives layer current
• Draw the primitive over the designed part using the red cube and cylinder buttons at bottom of screen
• Turn off designpart layer

Merge primitives

• Use the red union or subtract buttons to merge/subtract primitives only
• Pick subtract button from bottom
• Select larger box first and then the smaller box (this subtracts the smaller box from the bigger box)

Turn merged primitive into embedded primitive

• First create a compact list or merged primitive for the embedded component (above)
• Select primitive and hit yellow button on SDM toolbar
• Merge the embedded primitive and the part primitive

Making multiple copies of the same part primitive

• Copy the primitive (make sure z height stays the same)
• Merge the copy of the primitive with the primitive

Look at it

• Under view menu, pick shade, then select color edge highlight
• type Regen to regenerate when done

Take a look at the compacts

• Zoom out
• Turn on part and support layers
• Make a copy of the green and red stuff (all together anyway)
• Move it to the side
• Turn off primitives layer
• Type explode and select copy
• Move compacts apart and look to see if they make sense
• Can check order by selecting and then type list
• Can verify which compacts go with which primitives by inspecting the handles, the compact list should include the handle of the primitive as well as its own

• If your design is more complex and was not generated from the arx menu, you'll need to copy your design twice and make your own primitive and compacts.
• Move one copy of the design to the primitive layer and move the other copy to the redpart layer.
• Create regions defining the support material and extrude them accordingly to fill the space between -0.1 and 1.25 inches, try using the slice command to create regions.
• Move the extruded support material to the green support layer.
• Now, use the red L-shaped convert to primitive button from the arx menu to convert the copy into a primitive
• Select the copy on the primitive layer first, then when prompted for the compact list:
• Select the bottom green compact input, choose a point on the bottom of the compact to define the lowest z-height of the compact, then a point on the top surface to define the highest z-height.
• The compact should disappear after you define both z-heights.
• Select the red part compact, then its bottom and top z-points, and it disappears
• Repeat for the top green compact and when it disappears, hit enter again to end the process
• Again, it is useful to select the compacts and type li then check the primitive in the same way to confirm that the handles are correct.
• If you want to do multiple parts at once you can, though it is slightly more complicated
• Copy just the primitive and then merge all the copies of the primitive together into one big primitive, the copies should generate their own compacts
• If the part, support, or embedded components disappear when you copy the primitive, try moving your original part a vector distance of 0,0,0 this may reset the pointers and fix it...

Place your primitive on the palette

• The palette is 200mmx200mm, don't forget about your bolt holes that are about 7inches apart.
• The center of the palette should be the origin of the AutoCAD environment, move your part(s) if it they are not on the pallette.
• Make sure that your parts are all on the palette and clear of the bolt holes if the substrate is thin.

Measure the heights of the primitives and compacts

• Use the distance tool select a point on the bottom and a point on the top, Autocad gives you all the x, y, and z distances
• Record the z distances -- you'll need these

Plan it-very important that you save your file as versionX before this...

• Make primitive layer current and turn off all other layers
• Hit plan it button
• Select Primitive
• Enter substrate thickness by following method:
• THIS IS CONFUSING AND NEEDS WORK.....
• height of the wax block (usually 2 inches) minus the height to the lowest point on your design (you measured it in AutoCAD) plus .1 inches. Remember, your Autocad design occupies the space from z = -0.1 to z = 1.25 inches, where z=-0.1 to z=0 is the wax substrate we leave insure we protect the metal substrate from damage.
• Otherwise, if you plan to build up wax on the substrate just enter the height of the wax block
• IMPORTANT* in either case, make sure that the substrate thickness is at least .1 inches (or else you start cutting into the metal block)
• If AutoCAD is still running, grin - it worked. If not, did you remember to save it???

Think about the files it created

• It created .sat files - single step geometry files - takes the order of the compact list and starts merging them one by one
• It created .run files - run files required by the planning program
• They are located in the AutoCAD directory
• Copy only the ones *you* created (check the date and the time) into a directory of your choice

View .sat files in AutoCAD

• Open new file
• Select Insert menu, select ASIS solid, open each file in turn (it puts them one on top of another)
• Spread them out

How to make primitives out of arbitrary shapes in the x-y plane

• Make DesignPart and Primitives layers
• Make the 2D projection of the primitive on the x-y plane (z = 0) in the design part layer
• Make a copy and place it to the side
• Turn off all layers except for the DesignPart layer
• Extrude copy to -.1 the and place in the support layer
• Copy the copy to the original location and extrude to the height of the primitive and place in the part layer
• Copy the copy to the original location and extrude to the height of the primitive and place in the primitives layer
• Copy the copy to the original location
• Move to the primitive height and extrude from there to 1.25 (ie extrude to 1.25-primitive height)
• Turn on primitive layer
• Click on primitive and bring it to the front
• Turn on part, primitive, and support layers - turn others off
• click red box all the way to the right on the arx toolbar
• select primitive - it disappears
• select bottom support, then bottom and top of that support - it disappears
• select part, then bottom and top of that support - it disappears
• select top support, then bottom and top of that support - it disappears
• hit return - you're done!

Process Limitations

• 2 1/2 dimensions - currently we can only make parts that are arbitrary shapes in the x-y plane and extruded in the z direction
• 1 1/4 inches of height - always has to be below z=1.25 and above z=0

Definitions

compacts - things that can be built in one step on top of the previous compacts

Planning the tool paths (Do this or use UniGraphics)

Get your files (.sat and .run) to your eldorado account

• Connect via ftp to maximo.stanford.edu, the RPL computer
• If you have no account - ask Jorge for login and password
• Look at http://cdr.stanford.edu/Touch/biomimetics/documents/psensor/PSensor_Notes.html for an example
• Suggested file management
• Create a directory for each part.
• Within that directory create a model subdirectory and put the .sat files in there.

Leave the run files in the part directory.
• When you run the sdm planner, it will create a CNC directory and stuff the machine code in there.
• Get the DB directory from Jorge and put that in your account also
• Put the file cutters.nc in the part CNC subdirectory (get this from Jorge too)

Use sdmplan to make .cnc files

• Telnet securely using Samson klogin etc. to maximo-get login and password from Jorge
• Run the program called SDMPlan in the part directory
• type sdmplan SSG00x.run (where "x" is a number - look at the files that you have)
• do this for all the ssg files that you have to run, you may not need them all, e.g. consider if some compacts were filler space in your file
• This creates the .cnc files that are in the CNC directory (these are the files you will download to the machine to cut)
• Explanation of what just happened:
• SSG - the geometry that you need to cut at each step. That is, this is the shaping part of Shape Deposition.
• all the .cnc files corresponding to each SSG (i.e. compact) need to be run in between pourings.
• you want to make sure that the contours it makes are correct, so check the toolpaths

Make sure the tool paths are correct

• Get on a PC with xdisplay software and open it then connect securely using Samson klogin etc. to maximo
• Open an xterm for text, then at prompt> setenv DISPLAY machinename:0.0
• Change to the directory with your cnc files
• Run them in reverse order so you can see bottom up features as they appear
• Run the mow files first, then the largest tool contour files (2D1) and so on
• The cutters are defined in the .cnc files by the .run files, you can change them manually in the .run file before you plan it. The default as of 11/5/98 is mow=1/4in, 2D1=1/4in, 2D2=1/8in.

To view the toolpaths, for example the 2D countours by the 1/4in end mill: at prompt> spath SSG0001_1_1_2D1.cnc SSG0001_2_1_2D1.cnc