I'm loving this! Most cnc-builders still make regular boxes. You have captured what true CAD/CAM could/should be all about. +rep
Whoohoo! Update time! A little background here. The project has been going very slowly until real life gets in order. Stupid life. Bah! So I sat there looking at the front plate, not happy with how it was supposed to be put together. I attempted at tapping some holes, only to find everything was too shallow to tap, even with a 1-72 thread. I had to come up with something new. Here's what the front plate looked like a few hours ago, blown apart. I think I've shown a picture resembling this before, but who knows. I wasn't happy with the multiple pieces and the whole mess of putting everything together. I wanted a better way of holding everything together, with the ease of simplicity. I'm not lacking materials at this point, so I played around with the design and logistics for a few hours. I'm going to have to remake the aluminum pieces anyway, so here's the nice hunk of metal. Billet pr0n! Here's a quick SolidWorks model of the new front plate. There's no screws, just a nice interference / friction fit. 1-3 thousanths should allow for the acrylic to slide over tight enough. The circles in the top left and bottom right corner make it so the aluminum pieces can't twist or torque out of place. I left the pieces running while I had a fun Saturday night...so here's your shot at some nice CNC action. Enjoy!
Allllllright folks! Minor update again. I'm finishing up the front plate. On a side note, it's gorgeous here! Ack! So hard to get work done in this weather! Here's my obligatory "neener neener" shots of the day. Anyway, here's what you want...some CNC action! More pictures of the acrylic piece being machined Acrylic tends to chip when you machine it, so I left about 1/16" on the surfaces so I could simply fly cut the piece down to size. Boring, I know, but it came out pretty nice methinks. Fly-cutter! I think the piece came out rather nice! I left about 0.004" clearance on the extrusions so it would fit nicely with the aluminum piece. I didn't want it to get stuck or break since acrylic is rather gummy sometimes and the error between each end of the piece may be rather large (by large, I mean 0.0005" - 0.001"). Rather be safe than sorry. There's still sanding to do, but not bad, I say! Final Piece Now, onto the aluminum pieces! I showed you a semi-circular piece of stock before but I found a large piece that I cut into a rectangle, giving me more room to hold the piece down onto the CNC table. Sawheet! Onto the show! Alu-love! So, if you notice, I made a tiny boo-boo. There was supposed to be a cylindrical extrusion on the skinny parts of the pieces, as to keep the pieces from torquing or rotating, but I programmed the damn thing wrong and it cut them off . Also, if you notice in the next few pictures, the edges, well, suck. I'm not sure if the bit was worn or what (I thought it was a brand new carbide), but they're not up to my standards. I'm remaking them tonight! Crappy Edges That last shot was after about 45 minutes of filing the whole thing down. Oh well. Metal is cheap, and so is my time (for now). That's about all I have for you guys at this moment. Maybe I'll take some more pictures tonight of the aluminum CNCing since I tend to not take many since I leave the part and go do other things. I'm off to enjoy this most b-e-a-utiful day! Cheers! On another note, I got my acrylic and aluminum for the re-make of the top portion. I'll be doing that on Friday / Saturday, so expect some more updates soon!
You go to Stanford? It's such a gorgeous campus. And yes! The skies finally cleared up today! Beautiful day (if a little toasty). When you say you're going to "remake them" does that mean you're doing the edges over again or you're going to do the whole piece again?
Just graduate with my masters in March but I'm still around here until I find a job I like. Hopefull no rain in the foreseeable future, I love this weather! The aluminum front pieces I'm going to completely remake. I already took them out of the machine so redoing the edges is out of the question. The whole process only takes about 30 minutes to set up and about 3 hours to run or so, just because the aluminum is 0.5" stock and I'm taking it down to 0.375". I could run much faster but when you have the time, why not use it .
Nice weather and campus you've got there. A tiny bit jealous... Greate idea to fly cut the acrylic, never thought of that. Will have to keep that in mind. Good luck
Howdy folks. Be prepared for some good pictures to be showing up today or tomorrow! In the meantime, I want to get some input! I redesigned the slots in the top piece for ventilation. I kind of like this design better, it's simplistic, yet artsy in a way. Let me know what you think. Slot Design A higher quality render (with the right colors) is working right now.
Greate decision ...Those vents are so much better than the first ones. Looking forward to the next update.
But where are you going to source a slot load slim BD player to fit into your piece if art err I mean m-itx build ???
