Design and development of cheap hotwire foam cutting machine for aerospace applications

Project Title

Design and development of cheap hotwire foam cutting machine for aerospace applications

Project Area of Specialization 3D/4D PrintingProject Summary

In this project, a four-axis CNC based hotwire foam cutter will be built using a Makerbase MKS gen1 board which contain 4 DRV8825 stepper motor drivers. NEMA 17 stepper motors will be used to move the axis according to the commands given through G-Code. The hotwire will be made of Nickel chromium material and can be heated using resistance. Dedicated software (GRBL Mega 5X) will be used to cut the shape of the wing from the foam. 

Project Objectives

As we know, cutting foam manually will result in inaccurate cutting and dissimilar shape. Also more time will be taken by the worker to cut the foam manually. So, there should have to be a machine that can cut the foam accurately according to the dimensions given through software with the fraction of time and cost. We are here to present Hotwire foam cutter. It is a Computer numerical control (CNC) based hotwire foam cutter that will move in 4-axis and can cut the foam accurately as the user programmed the CNC machine according to the desired dimensions. The hotwire will cut the foam accurately with no error in shape.

Project Implementation Method

In this project, we will work and achieve our project goal and satisfy all deliverables by implementing the following approach.  First of all, we have done the literature review then we did a material selection in which we selected wood, aluminum rails, pulleys and timing belts to done the mechanical part of our project. Then the time had arrived to mount the stepper motors on both the axis of machine to move the machine. After that there was an electrical connection been done. The electrical part contains MKS gen1 board, stepper motor drivers(DRV8825), male to female connectors, power supply(12V) and fan. After making that connection the software handling has also been done using the software GRBL Mega 5X that gives command to the board and stepper motor drivers, drives the stepper motors according to the commands provided.

Benefits of the Project

The benefits of the project are;

• Cheapest machine.
• Cutting of the foam with in no time as compared to the manual cutting.
• Cutting of foam into the accurate shape. i.e; in this project we are going to cut the foam into the shape of airfoil of an aircraft's wing.
• Finest cutting with no irregularity in shape.

Technical Details of Final Deliverable

In this project first of all we are using a software GRBL mega 5X on our system and controlling MKS gen1 board through it. MKS board contains the ports for stepper motor drivers on which DRV8825 stepper motor drivers are mounted. MKS gen1 Board is controlling the stepper motor drivers. NEMA 17stepper motors are connected with DRV 8825 stepper motor drivers. Stepper motor drivers are driving the motors according to the commands given to the MKS board. NEMA 17 stepper motors are mounted over the machine that moves the machine according the given commands.

Final Deliverable of the Project HW/SW integrated systemCore Industry ManufacturingOther Industries Education , Manufacturing Core Technology 3D/4D PrintingOther Technologies RoboticsSustainable Development Goals Industry, Innovation and InfrastructureRequired Resources

Item Name	Type	No. of Units	Per Unit Cost (in Rs)	Total (in Rs)
			Total in (Rs)	28415
NEMA 17 Stepper Motors	Equipment	4	900	3600
MKS Gen L Board V1.0	Equipment	1	3600	3600
MKS Gen L Board V2.1	Equipment	1	6000	6000
DRV 8825 Stepper Motors Drivers	Equipment	5	550	2750
Power Supply	Equipment	1	1000	1000
20 Teeth 2GT Pulleys	Equipment	10	133	1325
2GT Timing Belts	Equipment	4	1500	6000
Electronics Casing	Miscellaneous	1	1000	1000
L- Clumps	Miscellaneous	10	40	400
Limit Switches	Miscellaneous	20	20	400
A4988 Stepper Motor Drivers	Equipment	4	400	1600
Wooden Sheets	Equipment	6	90	540
Male to Female Connectors	Miscellaneous	80	3	200