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Can't wait to see the final product good luck on finding somebody to manufacture the box for you,Styl3®
Now the big obstacle I am having is getting the enclosure made and because I enjoy making 3D models, I took the time to make one via 3DSMAX. I really like how it turned out. I have talked to a local machinist who is a good friend and vaper and he has told me that because I am making a custom case out of aluminum I would pay out the rear end. He did suggest using delrin for a protoype enclosure to make sure the measurements are correct because it will be much cheaper. I have even thought about going the same route Craig did with his awesome Powerbloks and having a few cases made by means of Selective Laser Sintering but my search for a local place has come up with nil for the moment. I'll keep looking and hopefully find something soon.
Wow, thanks for all the advice on the enclosure. I will definitely take it all into consideration. I spent the last six hours modeling in 3dsmax and have come up with these renders. The 2000mah version is on the left and the 2200mah is on the right. I may just stick with the 2200mah version since its not as big as my original designs were. Its only 113mm x 40mm x 20mm. The 2000mah is 106mm x 40mm x 14mm.
Since I have already ordered the 2200 cells I plan on using those first. Then I will go to the 2 1000mah parallel version. I must have redesigned the enclosure 6 or 7 times before the current models. Both are as small as I think I am going to get them for now. I also did a drawing in Illustrator and printed it for reference. It's pretty small considering how big the render looks. My 3d modeling skills come about 50/50 from classes and self taught. It comes in handy to kill time for fun or for something like this. Also learning a complex program takes time and patience. There have been several occasions when I have become frustrated with what I was doing and had to walk away. @CraigEdit: After replying with the above, I noticed you said you had to redo your drawings with 2mm walls. I have designed my drawings with that wall thickness to begin with so I should not have a problem if I decide to go with SLS.[/quoteI like what you said about the getting frustrated and walking away. The walking away trick deffinatly works, just walk away for an hour or so and then 9 times out of 10 you can resolve the problem. Where if you stayed trying to resolve it 3 hours later you are no clearer to solving the porblem.Best tip ever "walk away"
I submitted my renders to Solid Concepts and it would cost around $160 each for the enclosure pieces. That kind of cash I don't have right now so I need to find another option.
The forum isn't letting me post attachments right now for some reason.
I tried to fix the link but there is something wrong with it. Also it is a secure hyper-link (https) that I believe is not compatible with the forum coding.
I was having problem pos actual pictures. I kept getting a 409 error and the site saying that my request was processed but my browser couldn't compile the data. I had never seen something like that before.
CNC is cheaper for onesy twosies I think. Did you try that option?There's just no way to get things custom made cheap. If you order a larger quantity you can get the unit cost down, but that won't help if you don't plan to build a number of them.Another option is build your own 3D printer, but it's not cheap either. It could pay for itself if you make enough parts with it. The CNC type would be best for what you want to do. The additive type are also popular, but they don't have very good resolution among other drawbacks. There's a whole community of hobbyists into that kind of thing, lots of info on the net.
yeah if you could find somebody with a 3d printer...wow thats the way to goCraig, i just watched a 3d printer making a working wrench in one hit with all moving parts.............. Pretty Star trek like their replicator.... i am blown away. Now
They won't take two separate parts as one file. The online quote system will take it, but you'll get a call from an engineer saying they can't produce it. Shouldn't matter much though. The cost goes by unit quantity and the amount of material used per unit. Two files that contain one part each should cost about the same for the both of them as two parts in a single file. If you really want to use a single file you could probably connect the parts with breakaway leaders to make them producable as one part, but I wouldn't do that myself.For lowest cost, select nylon 12 GF under material, None (Unfinished) under Hand Finish, and Wet/Dry Blast under Surface Treatment. You will need to sand and paint the parts to finish them. The upside is you will be amazed how strong and light they are. The stuff is a fiber composite and it has all its advantages. The solvent tolerance is really good too. My parts have held up well to juice, alcohol, mineral spirits, and acetone with no degredation in hardness.I had a lot of trouble with paint. Most paints don't cut it, juice dissolves them over time. I found a hard lacquer that holds up well to juice and finger grease. You might want to test your paint against juice exposure first. I assumed an enamel would work well on the first build and then had to strip and refinish after I realized it was no good.
Hmm, bigger difference than I thought. Well, you'll have some stumps you'll have to sand down if the parts are connected. The stuff is pretty hard and takes quite a bit of elbow grease to remove a lot of material. I wouldn't want to deal with it.Don't know why your order has such a higher unit cost than mine did, it was $60 a set for my parts in quantity of 10 versus almost $200 a set for yours in quantity of 6, yeah? That doesn't sound right, unless the price has gone up drastically since 3 months ago.
Going back to the 3d printer just been looking at different home type 3d printers and came across this the solidoodle and really reasonably priced starting @ $499 see herehttp://store.solidoodle.com/You could get that back in no time !!!!!
Sounds like things are moving along nicely. Won't be long now. Makes sure you do some thorough testing of the board before installing it into a box. Just saying
Woo-hoo! The Li-po cells I ordered almost a month ago from Hobby King just arrived!