Well, i just found out my dad has a laser cutter thingy at work. So im gonna get him to cut a window in my coolermaster atc-101. The thing is, i can either do it on paper and ppl at his work can do the CAD design and cut it or i can do the CAD design my self, which i would prefere. I dont know much about CAD, just that it stands for Computer Aided Design and its a designing proggy or something or other. so is there any free CAD programs out there so i can have a really nice window. is CAD hard to use? thanks guys, .icecube
I'm not too great with describing things, but CAD is like you said, Computer Aided Design. Basically point to point lines and curves. It's like having a precise drawing represented in numbers instead of pixels. (vector instead of raster) I don't know of any free drafting programs off hand, but I can almost garuntee the computer running the machine will use an AutoCAD drawing file. I use AutoCAD Architectural Desktop, and think there is a trial version on Autodesk's site. Try www.autodesk.com (I'm too lazy right now to look into it) There are cheap programs at local computer shops/wal*marts.. pretty much any small box with CAD written on it should have something you could use, but you may run into file format problems on the laser cutter's end. I'm not hoping I helped.. that's too much, just that I haven't confused...
im getting someone online to sort out this dragon image i found. they can do all the cad bit at my dads work. thanks, .icecube
i used cad to design some phat grills (with clear\mirrored\nice acrylic polycarbonate) its not difficult, you just have to know the commands. if you want- i can make a little autocad design.. not too hard, just send me a jpg of the design and how big you want it... it will take me like 20 mis.. lemme reinstall cad =P pics of the grills i made my old tag was KJ, so thats why the big KJ is there- like i said, its not hard, just gotta know commands and how large (in inches) you want it to be. just gimme your email address and ill contact you =D
cant see the grills, and emails in siggy im getting a mate to edit this dragon image i found (well bindi found it for me ). should be really cool if he does a good job. thanks guys, .icecube
CAD can be pretty daunting at first, as there are so many different controls and options, but if you learn how to use it it can be very helpful. I sent out a quote request to a waterjet cutting company, but they said they wouldn't do the job because it would cost a lot less than their minimum order of $150. Aren't there programs that can convert a 2-d image into a CAD format automatically? Also, I'd like to see the image you want to cut. I cut a dragon in my case side by hand and wrote an article at overclockers.com about it, and someone asked for a copy of the original but I can't remember who.
well- the link works for me, if not- just copy\paste the thing into your browser and itl work... but here is a pretty detailed 92mm fan DESIGN i made, the blue is an etch, and the black are actual cuts. the skull is pretty badass looking, and i did it by hand- somone found the skull somewhere, and i thought itd be sweet lookin... so here is the skull pic.. i knew that pic wouldnt load like that =P.. freggin geocities! JUST CLICK THE LINK, and then click the address bar, and press enter- it will load the pic... skull
how much are u grills? i want some of the quake 3 ones look kool. including shipping to the uk, london
emm- well, i made some grills for my friend tony, like 5 of em, took like 25 mins to cut them. shippting to UK? jesus.. im not sure about that =P.. im in USA.. i traded my friend for a cold cathode, so for 5 it was about $30 us dollars... im not sure what that would translate into euros or whatever ^_^ but you would have to wait till about sept 9th. because thats when ill be able to use the lazer again btw, my grills are 'stealthed'- of course you know what that means, but sense i made the grills, i added the stealth directly ON to the grill itself, without cutting out that flimsy aluminum- this works 10x better than that way! well- hope to talk to ya later.
You can get a free trial version of a quite adequate CAD proggy called DeltaCAD. I use it here for 2d stuff. DeltaCAD
goto http://www.geocities.com/kj1c3/ first then copy http://www.geocities.com/kj1c3/grills.jpg into address line.
