Well, I still haven't finished Sui Generis to the level that I want to. Still itching to get the side panel completed, but finding it very hard to locate a decent CNC company that would do a side panel for a reasonable price. The cost of ordering the side panel from Corsair alone would be close to €80 or €100 and the replies that I have gotten from some companies regarding cutting, have been about €150+ Also, might anyone know of where I could source UV-Green 1mm or 1.5mm acrylic. Best I can find it opaque 1.5 or transparent 3mm. Thank you in advance for any input.
I'll assume that you're looking at waterjet cutting but the same applies to any 2d cutting tech (and CNC machining in general); the cost is directly dependant on the amount of time it takes to cut the panel, the longer it takes the more it costs. There are a couple of ways of speeding up the cutting process: Cutting sharp corners takes longer than cutting a radiused corner so replacing sharp corners with a radius will make things cheaper, this doesn't only apply to acute angles do it for right angles and obtuse angles too. Fine detail will also be expensive since it adds to the cut length and therefore cut time, simplify your image if you can. The other thing that may be adding to the cost for you is CAD technician time. If you're supplying a raster image (bitmap, jpeg etc) they will have to convert it into a vecotr drawing before it can be cut, preferred formats are normally .dxf as this is an industry standard. Technician time is very exensive so this would add considerably to the cost ( I wouldn't be surprised it this accounted for over £100 of the price). If you don't have the ability to produce a .dxf version of your image I would be prepared to make one for you at a reasonable price. I have had dealings with Cross Waterjet and found them very helpful and flexible. Moriquendi
ChilledPC. Will do most panel cuts for around £50 , using CNC . The postage to and from Ireland has to be less than you've been quoted.
Thanks for that guys. The panel design is very very simple actually. I just want a right-angled window with a curve on it. Very similar to the standard window on the Obsidian 800D, but want to raise the lowest part to hide the PSU compartment. I also want letters cut out so that I can insert a raised-letter acrylic block with my gaming community's name on it. I will definately contact ChilledPC about this.
I've been sending stuff to a laser cutting company in Belfast called MD&C for the past couple of years, but I've been meaning to get in touch with Foxcut in Portadown which is a water jet company. It's a lot closer to home and if the price is right, would offer me a much faster turnaround on CNC cutting. It would save on postage costs as well, as Portadown is only 20 minutes away.
