The manufacturing process for this project was fairly straight forward. The first parts to be machined were the aluminum side supports from which the cutting plate, blade carriage, and cutting cylinder are attached. Once the main geometry was machined it was changed as needed as the design evolved during fabrication, i.e. bolt hole modifications, and various attachment point additions. The steel blade carriage was the next component to be manufactured once the side plate’s primary geometry was completed. The blade carriage is made from three separate pieces of steel which are joined together by welds along their joints. A pre-cut aluminum frame was ordered from mK technologies who designed and fabricated a frame based on our general design and dimensional specifications. The cutting plate which holds the straws and the vacuum attachment piece were created by the Brinkman lab via their CNC mills and fused deposition modeling rapid prototyping machines respectively. One of the final metal components to be manufactured was the trap door/height adjustment sub assembly. The aluminum components were the first to be machined because of their ease of processing with the steel components coming afterward. An acrylic safety shield was fabricated last due to its simplicity and to allow it to be custom fitted to the final dimensions of the machine.
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- Node updated 2011-05-16 11:50 by mxv7731