Manufacturing

This week most of my team did not attend the weekly meeting as we were starting manufacturing of the route selection. The amount of time that we are able to use the ME 41 Lab room is within a very constrained time frame (12 - 3 pm). During this time we began working on the route selection by cutting a steel pipe to the appropriate length. After we faced the cut so that it was a flat face and then began boring the inner diameter of the tube. Since the material is steel, progress was extremely slow and we are mostly done with one side of one route selection tube. We did not finish within the allotted time which means we will have to return to the ME  41 lab to keep working on it. When we return we will fix the outer diameter of the tube to 70mm and the inner diameter of the tube to be 62 mm. After one side is finished then we will repeat with the other route selection tubes. We will also pressure fit the bearings in, and then install the route selection rotators. We still need to buy 3 extra caster wheels for the route selection. As of this Friday, I began welding the frame together but was unable to finish due to the lack of time that the Central Shop gave me access to their welder as they have many tickets that they still need to fulfill.

Presentation's cont.

This week was rather straightforward. The main focus of this week was to finish up all the presentations that were either cut short or left out from last week. This was mainly to get updates from the other full scale teams. This week we did find that the waterjet cutter is back and is able to cut our parts. Our parts were cut and are now waiting to be assembled and welded. As the semester winds down, the only thing left is cutting the route selection and having it lathed.

Week After Break

Coming back from Spring Break, our team needed to hit the ground running. While I have been frantically trying to get trained on the WaterJet Cutter. I have finished making the OMAX files and have even transported the material. Yet the day that I was to have my material cut by the central shop, the WaterJet cutter broke. Specifically the high pressure line that delivers water to the nozzle disconnected and was spraying waters all over the shop. This not only prevents us from cutting, but this prevents our team from making any significant progress on manufacturing. After the WaterJet broke, our group had to give a presentation on the progress our group has made. Since this presentation and the setback I have been looking at getting the piece manufactured in a separate shop, though the downside to this is that we may have to pay for this service.

To add to this, the route selection still needs to be finalized as the steel tube is extremely thick and the wall needs to be reduced to 2 mm thick. This posses a problem because the tube is going to be very difficult to cut. Though once this piece is cut, it should be easy enough to weld in place.