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Forum Index : Microcontroller and PC projects : 3D Printing Custom Enclosures
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| jdh2550 Regular Member  Joined: 16/07/2012 Location: United StatesPosts: 62 |
Hi All, I'm thinking of buying a 3D printer. It's one of those "really cool" things I've wanted for a while. One of the things I plan on doing is creating custom enclosures for the various electronics projects scattered around my desk, house and car. This desire is based on the derivative of Murphy's law that states that of the available enclosures the closest one is just X mm too small in one dimension and that the next size up is a shoebox. There's also the fact that you take a perfectly cool looking project and slap it in a Radio Shack enclosure and it immediately looks "seriously uncool" Some questions for you all: 1) Anyone out there have any direct experience with 3D printing? 2) Any one have any thoughts on the effectiveness of printing custom enclosures? 3) IF (and that's a big if) I do this and get to a point where I can easily print enclosures would anyone on this board be interested in buying them? This leads to a set of sub-questions: 3a) What enclosures would you most want? Off the top of my head I can easily think of a dozen that I have (DM Mega, DM eMega, Olimex A13, AT32UC3C-EX, UBW32 (just arrived!), JY-LKM1638, OpenLog, AVR Dragon, Arduino Mega, Arduino UNO, Arduino Mini, Galego(kickstarter project), TinyDuino(kickstarter project))** 3b) What would you pay for: (i) a custom enclosure for a popular board, (ii) a one-off for your frankenstien creation (maybe a DM + a JY-LKM1638 for example; or a bare proto-board item) 3c) What "features" would be important for you: (i) quality of finish (finer finishes cost more to produce but don't affect the functionality of the enclosure just the look) (ii) a range of colors (possibly a selection of colors one per case part (e.g. body and lid)) (iii) snap together no tools required vs. screw together and should I provide the hardware? (iv) expandable & reusable vs. one use design? (v) a range of different IP ratings (for a range of prices of course!) Thanks for reading - and any input will be greatly received. For those interested I'm thinking of one of this printer: http://www.indiegogo.com/RostockMAX?c=home It seems like a good trade off for size/space/cost. As you can see it's not cheap and I have to persuade my CFO (wife) to release the funds! ** And yes, I have far too many gadgets, and for those who counted that's a baker's dozen. But, hey, it's still a cheaper hobby than say Formula 1 racing... 
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elproducts Senior Member  Joined: 19/06/2011 Location: United StatesPosts: 282 |
I've been considering a 3D printer for some time as well but realized for making cases it might be better to get a desktop CNC instead and cut the various sides out of flat sheets of wood or plastic. But how often will I use it became the issue. So I've use pololu.com and their laser service to cut out pieces from clear plastic sheeting and it was easy. I even just sketched out a simple design on paper with dimensions once and they cut it out just perfectly. Now shapeways.com does this for 3D printing and they have much better resolution than any desktop 3D printer I can buy. Plus they have links to many different software sites that can convert 2D pictures to 3D and software to take a photograph of your face and a side of your head and make a 3D miniature version of you. It's really getting interesting to see where 3D printing is headed. So I'm just going to use these types of services for now until I absolutely need one of my own but as 3D printers drop below the $400 mark its getting harder to resist. Someday I want make my own CNC/3D printer machine someday possibly using a Maximite as the control box. It would be for the challenge, not to save any money. www.elproducts.com |
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donmck Guru  Joined: 09/06/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1313 |
John and Chuck, I have done some serious thinking on this subject, and although I may not be answering any direct questions, my research may help. I felt it would be great to have a nicely manufactured case for MaxiMite-DuinoMite projects, or any other for that matter. I was selling a metal case for Olimex projects, and other boards: http://www.esawdust.com/ These were great, but cost a small fortune to post around the world, and although the company was great to deal with, the shipping costs made it for me, unworkable. My first real look at a 3D printer was via David Jones's EEVBLOG videos: http://www.eevblog.com/2012/07/22/eevblog-318-makerbot-repli cator-3d-printer-unboxing-review/ These seemed to produce a really poor quality output. It looked like a gooey mess that came out the other end. Not something you could sell as a professional project case. David is possibly half my age, and has many times the resources I have. If it looked like a finicky job for Dave, then I wasn't going to try. I felt in a year or two they may advance to a workable product. Yet, looking around the 3d videos on YouTube today, I see some very interesting projects: First flight of 3D printed plane http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRDg4UB9Ajg&feature=related there are many more of course. The alternative to 3D printing is Laser cut acrylic: Adafruit came up with a nice design for the Raspberry Pi: $14.95 Postage $11.06 https://www.adafruit.com/products/859 And on ebay there is an equivalent from a Polish company: $7.89 Postage: $2.01 http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Adafruit-Design-Raspberry-Pi-Case -Box-Enclosure-/251131144900 I think the Polish company is doing a deal with Adafruit for the design reproduction rights. The dragon claws used in the Adafruit design really puts the icing on the cake, as there is no assembly kit as such. It simply clips together. I had a look at one of these with thoughts of producing cases. I felt I needed to do something other than the Dragon Claws for assembly, as it was a blatant steal of Adafruit's design. I am yet to come up with any real alternative. The Laser cut acrylic unit would also allow for letter type postage world wide, same as I am doing with some PCBs at $2 additional per letter. When Chinese companies can manufacture and ship an AC to 5V (USB) power supply world wide for under $1.50 per unit, how much could they do a popular (maybe RPi) acrylic, or 3D case for? Don... https://www.dontronics.com |
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BobD Guru Joined: 07/12/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 935 |
Don, when I saw John's post at the start of this thread, the first thing I thought of was that shipping from the US is going to make these a costly item. Amazon US is sending me emails each night to entice me to buy power tools. If I had a need then the prices are good but the shipping takes the gloss off the deal. Another time I added a 6 dollar music CD to the basket and the shipping went up by $7. Don't get me wrong, they are still good deals but the shipping from there can be expensive relative to other parts of the world and I am not just thinking of China. |
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MicroBlocks Guru Joined: 12/05/2012 Location: ThailandPosts: 2209 |
I had a 3d printer, cnc machine and a lasercutter on my wishlist. After a long time thinking hard which of the tools are worth their money i am now saving for a cnc machine and later a lasercutter. A 3d printer is off the list. A cnc will allow you to make things out of more kinds of material. It can even double as a 3d printer when you change the router to an extruder. Basically a CNC is a 100 times more rigid version of a 3d printer with the only shortcoming less travel in the z direction. With a cnc you can make a 3d printer, the other way around impossible. I had a hard look at most 3d printers and came to the conclusion that all of them are still too much experimental. A moving platform is one way of screwing up a design because you do not want to agitate the still warm and flexible model you are building. Especially when it gets detailed or thin you don't want the platform to shake the model around. Better ones have a platform that move only in the z direction and have an extruder going in the x and y directions. Prices are close to 2000us$ for those. The results are still not good enough to be able to sell stuff. If you want to make it look good you still need a lot of manual work, making it impractibal or very expensive. The ones that use a resin and a DLP projector look very promising, but again they are just getting out of alpha phase of development and have to many little problems and many adjustments. Results from those printers look very good. But it is no plug and play, vary far from it. A CNC however will give you very professional results as does a lasercutter. CNC is already around for many years and there is a lot of good stuff available. Microblocks. Build with logic. |
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| elproducts Senior Member Joined: 19/06/2011 Location: United StatesPosts: 282 |
This is another great example of open source spreading ideas freely but also the risks associated to profiting from your work if the product gets too popular. Adafruit open sourced the design so anybody can reproduce it. All they ask is reference to Adafruit be given through creative commons attribution. They also hope you appreciate their work and buy from them. So now I can get one on EBAY for $4.00 with free shipping to USA without any reference to Adafruit and this only relies on people respecting the open source agreement and feel guilty enough to buy from Adafruit instead. But $4 vs $14.95 plus shipping is a big difference, especially to a hobbyist who is on a limited budget. So I doubt there are any agreements with adafruit. I also feel sorry for the Adafruit resellers. They didn't design it so they are directly competing with the $4 guy. So what does all this mean? This also means you aren't blatantly stealing the dragon claw idea if you use it in your own design for Maximite. But through creative commons license you should reference the design idea was based on the Adafruit design and then we'll have a great Maximite case to buy from you. But then again you are suppose to open source the design files so someday when Maximite is as popular as Rasberry Pi, we will see a $4 Maximite case on EBAY. www.elproducts.com |
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| cwilt Senior Member Joined: 20/03/2012 Location: United StatesPosts: 147 |
Pay attention to the type of material being printed. Most of the newer entry level ones print mostly PLA. I think you are going to want something that prints ABS. |
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| jdh2550 Regular Member Joined: 16/07/2012 Location: United StatesPosts: 62 |
Thanks everyone for the great feedback - I appreciate it. And, while I probably won't be making any money with selling enclosures - temptation got the better of me and I've ordered a Rostock Max anyway. It's just been on my "wow that's cool list" for a while ... To address some of the other issues raised: CNC or laser cutter would probably have been more expensive and less functional for me as I want to do more than just enclosures. The Rostock Max in kit form is $845. At the end of the day they all three do different jobs with some overlap. 3D printing is just the one that interests me more right now. As far as using an online service goes - that's certainly a good approach for some things but I'm a tinkerer and want to try seeing things created on my desktop. To win over the wife one of the first projects I'll be trying is a 3D bust of our son (courtesy of 3D scanning done with a XBox Kinect sensor and this software: http://reconstructme.net/). My tinkerer's mind is already thinking about the possibility of a multi-extruder head or a different purpose head. But I'll just get it set up and working right first! The MAX has a stationary, heated bed so I can print ABS (more durable, less finicky) or PLA (more environmentally friendly, less durable, more finicky). The Delta design supposedly gives a superior speed and stability trade off than the more common linear models. I think we're probably reaching a tipping point and in the next couple of years you'll be able to get a consumer product version for $500 that allows you to just unbox and use to create models up to 6" When I do get Max up and running I'll let you know how it goes... |
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| donmck Guru Joined: 09/06/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1313 |
I feel it will be a case of "If you can dream it, you can print it." Self replication of many of the 3D printer parts will become quite normal. But not this year. 
Good luck with it John. Don... https://www.dontronics.com |
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| aargee Senior Member Joined: 21/08/2008 Location: AustraliaPosts: 255 |
Well, I just got one of those Polish Adafruit Raspberry Pi cases in the mail. The acrylic seems to be thinner than the one portrayed on the Adafruit site, and it is weak. Two claws that hold the ends on the case had hairline cracks after the first assembly of the case and have subsequently snapped off, attempting repairs with CA glue. I have my name on the waiting list for the genuine article from Adafruit - just to compare the two. The laser cutting shows signs of overheating, burn marks on the protective plastic skins and "blobby" sort of edges at some points. Great idea but the acrylic has to be of good quality.... Oh and it's not exactly the same construction, the Adafruit one uses some of the cut outs for internal support mounting, these don't come with the Polish version. The Adafruit video seems to show a better product. For crying out loud, all I wanted to do was flash this blasted LED. |
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| elproducts Senior Member Joined: 19/06/2011 Location: United StatesPosts: 282 |
Apparently it's not just the plastic, its the design. Here is a blog that evaluated two actual Adafruit versions and both cracked. Blog Blog's Evaluation Summary: The case has no screws or standoffs and the little feet have to be squeezed to make the pieces snap together. Very elegant design, however, (probably accelerated by the Raspberry Pi’s heat emission) after a few days of use, the acrylic became extremely brittle and started to show cracks around the cutouts. One of the feet broke off, while we were trying to open the enclosure, rendering the case useless (all feet are needed to snap the enclosure parts together again.) Despite operating extremely carefully, the same happened to the second case only a few days later. Kudos to Adafruit though. Once we mentioned our experience with the enclosure, a refund was issued. While this could have been a temporary issue related to the acrylic used for our cases, we would not recommend the enclosure for longer use or if you needed to open and close the enclosure often or even rarely. www.elproducts.com |
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| donmck Guru Joined: 09/06/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1313 |
Thanks for the good feed back guys. It looks like dragon's claws aren't the silver bullet of acrylic case assembly I was hoping for. I would imagine with the type of experimentation that goes on within this group, these cases would be rendered useless fairly quickly. I also saw the Raspberry Pi Case by Barch Designs on Chuck's link. CNC Machined from Billet Aluminum Customizable Engraving Long Slot to connect a 26-pin IDC cable (e.g. Cobbler Breakout Kit) Acts as a Heat Sink LED Fiber Optics $69.99 (incl. shipping) Nice case, heavy price. Don... https://www.dontronics.com |
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| jdh2550 Regular Member Joined: 16/07/2012 Location: United StatesPosts: 62 |
There are lots of mathematical fruit cases on ThingVerse: http://www.thingiverse.com/search?q=raspberry+pi+case |
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| donmck Guru Joined: 09/06/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1313 |
Love this one: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:27725 A simple case for the Raspberry Pi model B computer. It's held together with stylish rubber bands stylish rubber bands! He must be joking. Thanks for link John, some good and bad ideas there, but plenty of ideas nevertheless. Don... https://www.dontronics.com |
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djuqa Guru Joined: 23/11/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 447 |
Stylish rubber bands!! What is next. Attractive baling wire! VK4MU MicroController Units |
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| donmck Guru Joined: 09/06/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1313 |
This would be more practical, colourful, and boost the Aussie economy: The Wiggles BAND-AIDs: http://www.thewigglesshop.com/ProdView.aspx?popup=1&Product= HBP0280000 Don... https://www.dontronics.com |
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| jdh2550 Regular Member Joined: 16/07/2012 Location: United StatesPosts: 62 |
Yeah - dem rubber bands be stylin! How about this one that goes to the other extreme - taking a nice small compact SBC and going way too far with the raspberry theme: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:27537 file this one under "just because you can doesn't mean you should!" |
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| donmck Guru Joined: 09/06/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1313 |
When you fry it, you can say it is a working model of the Hindenburg.
Don... https://www.dontronics.com |
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| aargee Senior Member Joined: 21/08/2008 Location: AustraliaPosts: 255 |
I won't even ask why you were looking on the Wiggles website, Don. :-) CA is not the answer for the Polish Adafruit Pi case. :-( Nice idea but.... For crying out loud, all I wanted to do was flash this blasted LED. |
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| donmck Guru Joined: 09/06/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1313 |
When you have grand children that insist you use only wiggles band aides on your cuts, (and it has to be number one in your bookmarks), then you know you have to abide, or hit the highway. Don... https://www.dontronics.com |
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