Jan '06 - Jan '07
The College just purchased a new 3d printer and a laser engraver. I'll just give a brief overview of the two, and i'd love to get some feedback about the products.
3d printer:
Dimension SST -
http://www.dimensionprinting.com/printers/printing-sst.shtml
Here is a great video about how the machine works more or less:
http://alphaprototypes.com/videos/FDM-Video.wmv
Basically, they probably spent around 35k for it, and as I understand it, ZCorp makes better printers for comparable prices. Any thoughts?
As far as the laser engraver goes, they bought this one:
ULS x-660
http://www.engraversnetwork.com/uls/x660.html
Now, for those of you who don't know, a laser engraver is primarily used to do just that... engrave stuff... stuff like custom pens, keychains, pen holders, paperweights... you get the idea. 
Nowhere in that short list do you see any immediate architectural uses. This is about as far as the company goes to list archiectural uses on their site:
and that first one looks like a 3d rendering more than a built model. I understand it has the ability to cut out pieces that could be used to build a model, but for 27,000 dollars I think they could have bought another 3d printer and been better off. maybe a ZCorp to compliment the Dimension.
Well, that's the jist of it. I'm not sure who will even get to use the equipment at first, but I'm ready to try it out. If anything the laser engraver ought to be great at cutting out circles from matte board or something like that. We'll see...
9 Comments
The ULS x-660 is definately used more in architecture schools as a laser cutter, not laser engraver. Great machine, mostly students cut chip board but you can also cut thin wood, and if you have the ventilation system you can cut plexiglass...all in all they make for some sweet model building.
We have both of those machine at my school, the laser cutter is always used, the 3d printer is hardley ever.
how exactly do i go about figuring out how to use the laser cutter without the manual? I am not sure exactly which programs to use, how big the pieces can be, etc... i want to build a site model and use it to cut out the main pieces but i'm not sure whether i should use autoCAD or what, and how to orient the drawing and all that good stuff...
The best instructions I could give would be to vist our digital media office website. It actually has a step by step guide for everything you need to know about the laser cutters (which i belive our programs have the same models).
Here is the link: http://www.architecture.yale.edu/dmonline/
In the column of blue links headed FABRICATION LAB, click on the link that says laser cutter, (2nd from the bottom), and a window should open up will all that you need to know.
As far as the power and speed setting, it may be a bit different than ours because yours is new, but we cut 1 ply chipboard at speed of around 10 and power of around 90...100 being the highest for both....you should definately test out speeds and powers on various materials before starting with final material, and don't leave the laser cutter unattended, sometimes that can catch the material on fire (will very slow settings and high power on paper products)
You break down the cutting speeds and powers by line color, so your CAD file should correspond with the correct line colors, scoring and cutting should be done all in one pass, once you pick up your piece out of the machine it is impossible to put it back right where u had it for a perfect cut.
(you print from either autocad (vector) or photoshop (raster)
Hopefully that guide will help out...if you have any other questions just respond here, i'll check it. good luck
thanks so much, this is really helpful. our college has a terrible website, and it really hasn't had any content added to it in four or five years. they're somehow working on getting someone to design a new one, but they really don't know what they're doing.
who does the yale architecture website? is it done by a student worker, overseen by an IT staff, or is there a full time web developer? if so, what kind of experience do they require them to have? our web guy is an idiot. he didn't even know what a blog was until last week when i sent him a link to one to show an example of how they work.
frustrating...
The guy who did all our website stuff is the head of all things electronic at Yale's architecture school. John Eberhart. Former Yale student, and now runs all things digital, fabrication, etc. also teaches web design classes, 3D software classes, as well as co-teaching studios, usually where there is a large 3d modeling component to the critics work.
Because he is so knowledgable about all that stuff he has a pretty large reign over purchasing equiptment and whatnot. I think he has a knack for wanting to play with new toys. We just got a 3d object scanner that you can even scan yourself into the computer as a 3d model. It's bizzare. But sometime the practicality of these machines matched with the increases in digital media charges is questionable.
that's awesome. one of my prof's at the viz lab has a 3d scanner, but it's 18 years old. a guy in the lab is doing his thesis on facial expressions and muscle movements in the face, and he used me as the test model. I had to sit in this machine for about an hour making the most ridiculous faces while it scanned me for thirty seconds at a time. But when he's done smoothing out the scanned obj's, he's going to give me the files to play with, so it was worth it. The scans looked pretty awesome too, except for the little orange nodes they stuck onto my face that ended up looking like weird tumor growths.
3d modeling at A&M architecture is almost non-existent. we have a few classes in the viz lab for grad students only that get into some heavy math behind modeling, but for undergrad architecture majors there is not really anything apart from the freshman class I teach, which has to cover everything from photoshop, web design, to modeling and rendering in one semester. we don't really have a chance to get too in depth, and most of the students just complain about having to study web design.
Does A&M have Rhino on it's computers?
For architectural projects I've found it to be a great program due to its similarities in work environment as autocad while still being a nurbs based program allowing for measured form manipulation. Of course the rendering isn't so hot but but exporting to Viz or Maya is always an option.
i wish they had it, but they don't ... the main lab has 3ds max 4.2, viz 2006, and the arch lab has non-working copies of viz 2006, and no 3ds max.
the viz lab has maya, but only grad students in the program get to use those computers... basically there are no good options for 3d modeling software on campus.
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