21 Fall Digital Fabrication Week2 Assignment: 3D Modelings and CNC 2.5D-Laptop Stand
Project Brief:
Project name: Wood Laptop Stand with CNC and Rhino
Project type: Individual Project
Duration: 2 days
Assignment Description:
1. Design and sketch wooden laptop stand. You also have to make a full cardboard prototype before cutting the final piece.
2. Your design should include at least 1 CNC digital joint from the Opendesk Digital woodworking website.
3. In Rhino, draw assembled 3D model of your design
- Wood thickness: 15 mm | End Mill diameter = 6.35 mm
- Your design should fit inside a rectangle of 300 x 270 mm.
- Each piece should be separated from each other by 20 mm.
- Can incorporate 20 mm diameter rod.
4. Using the same curves that you used for the 3D model, export the curves in DXF and create the toolpaths in Carbide Create and manufacture with the Shapeoko CNC machine.
5. Document and post your process on Behance by**: Monday 8th Nov - 12pm.**
Inspiration:
I started with searching for some images of wood laptop stand with joint look like:
Images from Google
I chose to experiment with the first one(image 1 and two) the second one and the second laptop stand in the fourth image.
Iteration 1
In the first iteration and experiment, I picked this because it looks simple and stable.
I measured the approximate size of my MacBook Pro 15 inches and figured out that the distance between two laptop stand legs should be at least 300mm and the vertical distance of the stand should be around 270mm, which perfectly fit the assignment requirement of which we need to fit our design into an 300mm x 270mm wood board.
The joint I applied to this stand is lap joint, I successfully test the joint with cardboard prototype.
iteration 2:
In second iteration, I wanted to try the laptop stand with not tilting. The flat design and minimalistic aesthetic attracts me a lot. I also used cardboard to prototype. In order to give laptop more space to breathe, I decided to remove the center material of top board compared to the reference.
the joint I proposed to use in this iteration is hidden mortise and tenon.
Iteration 3:
The third iteration I did is the second laptop stand in the picture below ⬇️. It is simple, minimalistic as well.
The middle stand is my third test
I finalized with the first idea.
CAD Design in Rhino:
The digital design in Rhino is easy. It is basically exactly the same thing I did in my last laser cutting project. The only beyond is to add mills in
The problem I encountered during the Rhino design is the joint height. I have two basic components and two component connect with each other through lap joints, the positions of joints should be correspondingly match so that there will not be any empty space between two components, which means that the structure will be more stable.
Digital Rendering and Assembly to see if pieces of wood precisely connect to each other
CNC Production & Final Assembly
The machine I used for CNC is Shapoko. The first step is export the wireframe design from Rhino to Carbide Create, which is a tool to simulate the CNC process and run the cutting operation.
However, the CNC did not cut through the wood board, which means that I had to cut the board manually.
You can see some scars on the surface, some are the traces of CNC, some are the traces of my cutting
Final Outcome
