Scratch Project: Acronym (mITX XBMC HTPC)

[Achron]

Hello everyone!

As I'm coming to the end of my career as a full time master's student in the next 4 months, I decided to build an HTPC for the non-existent HDTV that I own . The plan is to have it finished around the time I graduate (March), or sooner. As I'm sure everyone here knows, it's hard to keep a consistent log as a student, let alone finish a build, but I'll do my best.


Specifications:

Currently Bought:
Motherboard: Zotac Geforce 9300-ITX WiFi
Processor: Intel C2D E7400 2.8GHz
Memory: 2GB Kingston DDR2 800
Hard Drive: Western Digital Scorpio Blue 2.5" 80GB
Operating System: Ubuntu 9.10 with XBMC

Future Purchases: (Too poor right now!)
Optical Drive: Slimline Blu-ray Player
CPU Heat Sink: Undecided...It's between the Thermolab Nano, Silverstone NT07, and Zalman VF2000 (due to height restrictions of <45mm).


Purpose:

Since everyone has a different purpose for their HTPC, I figure I'll state mine up front. It won't be storing any media locally, as I have a NAS set up with the goods already. I want an attractive, convienent front end to show my media, stream 1080 content, and the option to occasionally play a Blu-ray right from the computer itself.

I looked up several pre-boxed HTPC's, but none really caught my eye. After this failed reconnaissance mission, I decided to design my own.


Design:

I really have no idea what influenced me on this project. It had to be small. Barely big enough to fit the mini-itx board. It also had to fit all of the components snugly. It also had to look sexy enough for my taste.

Without further ado, here are some drawings. Solidworks was my program of choice, since I've been using it for 5 or so years.

You can see in these drawings I measured everything out and modeled the components so everything can fit nicely. If anyone has any questions as to the logistics of how the case will go together, ask me, and I may have an answer (or I may not know yet :duh.

Quick rendering in Solidworks

Wireframe View - Front

Wireframe View - Side

Wireframe View - Top

Machining:

For the past year or so, I've been working in the machine shop on campus here. I've had machining experience before this, but working here has given me the chance to improve on this. We have a HAAS 3-axis vertical mill, which I adore waah: no 4-axis). Most of the work will be done on the CNC due to the complex shape that the case takes, since I like things to be oh-so-easy.

Also, a note. This won't and can't (with my budget and limited machines) be machined from a solid piece of material. The plan is to divide the case into sections and machine them individually, then connect them together to make the full case. Think of one of those foam Millennium Falcon jigsaw puzzles, only this time it's aluminum :clap:. I plan on machining all of the insides first, lining everything up, then machining the outside all at once.

Frontplate:

The frontplate was the easiest starting point of this whole project. Flat, thin, and not much to it (if I had a nickel...). Unfortunately, I won't have any process pictures for a few sections, since I'm an idiot and kept forgetting the camera. It's simple, however. Take a slab of 3/8" aluminum, cut to size, face with a sick nasty multi-head cutter, take drawing, import to Mastercam, voila!

Here's a snap of the half-completed frontplate. Again, I'm saving the contour for the very last. Mmm shiny.

Wireframe:

Front:

Back:

You'll notice the ends of the piece aren't as smooth as the middle. The clamp in the CNC is only so wide, so the ends tend to chatter a little when the tool goes over those parts. It's still smooth to the touch, but what you're seeing is probably 0.001-0.005" variations. Nothing a little sandpaper can't fix .

The big oval hole is for some IR-visible plexiglass. I don't like anything external, so I hacked apart a MCE receiver and it will be mounted behind this opening. The two holes on the ends are for vandal switches, one for the power switch and the other for the Blu-ray eject (probably). The slot...well the slot is for ejecting the money that I sank into this project :duh:.

Top Chassis Lid:

This piece is a bit more difficult than the last. First, finding a 1" thick piece of aluminum 100mmx200mm is a tedious task. Not to mention that the shape of this piece is...well, complex. As I'm writing this log on a Friday night, the part has been running since 4ish PM today. Projected time to completion, 20ish hours. That may have something to do with the fact that to smooth out the 'scallops' left by the roughing toolpath, I had a small ball end mill (1/8") make very small steps. If anyone doesn't know much about CNCing, feel free to ask and I will do my best to answer. Disclaimer: I am by no means an expert!

Here's a solid model shot of the piece. I started off by facing each side, then cutting the groove in the sides. Then, the CNC took the spotlight and drilled the holes on the underside of the piece, followed by roughing and finishing.

Solid - Top:

Solid - Bottom

I figured I would provide a picture of the shop I work in, and where this case will (hopefully) come to life. Also, a nice view of the CNC machine is shown.

Machine Shop

Haas CNC

Top Chassis Lid:

Although I have no progress pictures of this piece, here is the finished bottom of the lid. If you're wondering, this piece took 1.5 hours to rough cut, and ~8 hours to finish.

Finish Pass

Close Up

Another Close Up

Long Shot

Some of you may wonder what the protrusions and holes are for. The long rectangular protrusion is for the hard drive mount, which can (sort of) be seen in the Solidworks drawings in my previous post. The circular and goofy looking shape is for my IR receiver circuit board! The board looks like so:

IR Circuit Board

Top Slices:

Since this case can't be comprised of a single block of aluminum, I chose to separate it into sections. It's basically an inch slice from the top of the case, which results in 2 separate pieces.

Solidworks Top Slices

Solidworks Top Slices

The piece starts out as such...just a simple block of aluminum.

Aluminum Block

Then, off to facing and edging the piece so everything is level.

Multi-head Cutter

Fly Cutter

End Facing

Then, off to Mastercam!

Mastercam Toolpaths

Absolutely nothing visible through the filthy plastic windows and coolant.

Coolant Shot

After the roughing paths, this is what is left. Then, we finish it with a smaller ball end mill.

Finished Roughing

Halfway through the finishing process.

Half Finished

Finished!

Even if it may not look smooth, I assure you, you can feel no ridges. Just to get a sense of why the process takes so long, I'm using a 1/8" ball end mill making 0.1mm paths. So, for every line the mill takes, it moves over a step of 0.1mm and does the next one. This piece took ~4 hours total in the CNC.

 

[ZygoatD]

cool. keep the updates and pics coming.

 

[pc1x1]

amazing CNC ability, very nice

 

[Wahoomcdaniel]

Very impressive, both from the perspective of front end planning and execution.
I like it.

 

[Adidas4275]

looks great, do you machine/design for a living or just have access?

 

[shadowlord]

nice machining so far !

only thing is that the face that the front design resembles looks sad to me.
is it only me or does anybody else see it?

 

[Reaper]

Not to sound like a dick, but I had this deja vu feeling looking at the rendering, and it reminds me of the Phantom Console. Fortunately, you have a media drive planned and you're not defrauding anyone. It looks like it will be pretty damn cool.

 

[Achron]

Not to sound like a dick, but I had this deja vu feeling looking at the rendering, and it reminds me of the Phantom Console. Fortunately, you have a media drive planned and you're not defrauding anyone. It looks like it will be pretty damn cool.

I just googled that...and not to sound like a dick, but fortunately for myself, defrauding someone because something that looks absolutely nothing like a non-existent console isn't actually wrong.


I apologize about the lack of updates this past week. This was the last week of class for the quarter, so I've been extremely busy.

Here's what I've been doing so far. It turns out that the drawing I was using goofed up. There were some external references in there somewhere, and some holes got moved around that shouldn't have....so what does this all mean? I had to remake all of the parts that I already made...sigh. Oh well, stuff happens! This also gives me an opportunity to machine the case such that everything will fit much more precisely than before.

All of the following aluminum pictures are current (just machined them today). The acrylic piece was a prior attempt. I had to scrap that one because I had to take the piece out of the CNC and then put it back in a few days later. Moving things before finishing machining is definitely a pain in the butt.

I also made a few little redesigns. I wasn't happy with the brackets for the hard drive or the BDROM, since they didn't really relate to the curvy body of the case. I chose to go with the first design, with the two thin slices of acrylic. It definitely is my favorite out of them all.

God, I love these coolant shots too :clap:.

So basically what I'm doing here is essentially re-machining everything I've done. You'll see in the next few updates how I'm going to assemble and machine everything together. These next pictures are of the top left and top right pieces (the drawings in my last post) being machined. Of course, facing with the fly cutter and then facing the sides with a large endmill.

And of course, the gratuitous coolant shots. It's like a machinists porn!

 

[FrEaKy]

my god, thats like hardcore porn.

 

[Adidas4275]

great camera work

 

[Åndhrimnir]

my god, thats like hardcore porn.

lol, you nearly made me spill my cocoa on my keyboard.

Nice work, man! I have zero experience in metalwork but this makes me want to learn. Can't wait to see more dirty pictures

 

[mwarps]

I died a little on the inside when I saw how totally awesome this project was.

 

[Achron]

Hello folks! Hope everyone is ready to gear up for the holidays, I know I am. This may be one of my last posts until the new year, I'm flying home (across the US) for Christmas break starting Friday, so I'm busting my butt to get a lot of stuff done before then. So, enjoy the show!

We got a new granite inspection table this week. This thing is incredibly heavy (I'm guessing over 1000 pounds):

Side Pieces:

This weekend I've been working on the side pieces and the backplate. If you recall my design, I have to make to of the following pieces:

These pieces were rather big, so the aluminum was hard to come up with. We had a piece of aluminum 9.75" in diameter (cylinder) and almost 3" thick. I couldn't cut the piece in half to make both of the sections, but if I cut it 9mm off center and then stepped across the centerline 9mm to the other side, I could fit the 2 pieces in!! Yay for me!

Also...this thing took forever to cut in half. The aluminum bandsaw blade snapped (and I about pissed myself) so I had to use the steel bandsaw. Took about 30 minutes to cut through :wallbash:.

This is how big this chunk of aluminum is:

Putting it in the CNC, I faced the top and the sides to get a nice 0,0,0 position:

After facing the piece, I cut an inch or so off of the other side to get the piece closer to the final size. I milled the alignment holes in each side, then I roughed it out (CNC go go!).

Then I finished the piece with a long, small ball end mill.

Seems like I forgot to take a finish shot. That'll be in my next update.


Motherboard Backplate:

Since I didn't want to spend all night at the machine shop, I chose something easy. Here's what the piece should look like:

Cut the piece out of 1/16" aluminum:

Cutting the pattern!

Prying the piece of aluminum off of the plexi (very good double sided tape) was a pain in the butt.

Did I ever mention I hate sanding aluminum? That gunk sticks to your hand.

Final shots!

 

[Åndhrimnir]

looks lovely. clever thinking with the off-center cut! I may have missed the explanation, but what's the plexi for?

 

[zer0gravity]

CNC work looks great!

 

[unhappy_mage]

Awesome, subbed.

How much does it cost you to use the machine shop?

 

[ZygoatD]

looks lovely. clever thinking with the off-center cut! I may have missed the explanation, but what's the plexi for?

plexi was just to hold the aluminum during the cnc process. (my guess)

 

[MoparMadness]

oh boy now this is nerd porn! - got 'er bookmarked!!!

 

[Achron]

Awesome, subbed.

How much does it cost you to use the machine shop?

Nothing, I work there .

plexi was just to hold the aluminum during the cnc process. (my guess)

Bingo. Double sided tape held the aluminum down while the machine went around. There's few other ways to hold such a thin material and have everything work out as well.

 

[zaxour]

Awesome work. Can't wait to see the finished product.

I think this thread should have been titled "AWWWW SKEET SKEET SKEET SKEET"

 

[Shadowssong]

This is badass, can't wait for end product.

 

[Achron]

Happy new year everyone!

Big update here. Time wise, not quite content wise. These next pictures are over the course of a few days, just to complete one thing!

If you can remember, I had the 3 solid pieces of aluminum lined up ready to CNC. Well, here's the process!

Roughing

Roughing Mounted

Roughing Closeup

Roughing No Flash

Finishing in Action

Finishing in Action

Finishing in Action

Finishing in Action

Finishing in Action

Finished Aluminum Pieces

Finished Aluminum Pieces

Acrylic Set up for Machining

Roughing of Acrylic

Roughing of Acrylic

Roughing of Acrylic

Roughing of Acrylic

Roughing of Acrylic

Finish Passes

Finish Passes

Finish Passes

Finish Passes

Finish Passes

Finished Acrylic Section

Here's a finished shot showing some improvements on sanding that need to be done (finished with 620 grit, will do more when I get some).

Finished, Sanded

Finished, Sanded

Finished Closeup

Happy New Year!

 

[FrEaKy]

dear lord and 5 pound baby jesus..... sitting in his manger.....

sheesh dude

Loven it.

 

[hazexban]

This is awesome, any updates?

 

[Wahoomcdaniel]

I had the same thought about updates.
I'm reluctant to post this, but a more up to date worklog and additional pics are on the bit-tech forum.

 

[biiscit]

This is so awesome. Much respect.

 

[Rukks]

Very nice work, if you have smaller ball mill bits available you shoule try to use them on the extruded parts, that is if you want to take the extra time. It would minimize your mill lines though.

 

[EastwooD-]

I cant wait to see this done man you have done some amazing work!!!

 

[Achron]

Completely forgive me for my lack of attention to this thread. I've been posting on another forum (*shameful*) quite more regularly. I'm going to do my best to catch this one one, as it has about a years worth of work to jam in, albeit spread out over the course of a few weeks.

Here we go!

1-2-2010

I spent most of my day yesterday trying to get mounting hole measurements for a slim optical drive. I had none laying around, and the only one available to me was on my laptop. Unfortunately, I have a Dell Studio and they don't let you just slide the optical drive out. So, this is the pain that took me half the day...I hope I don't screw up the computer that I use to post!

Parts Galore

More Parts Galore

The Culprit

All this was just to get the mounting hole measurements and locations. This had to be done so I could start on the bottom piece. I was too impatient to wait for my new drive to come in from China in like 3 weeks!

Well...moment of truth, does it work when put back together?

Woo Hooooo!

Here's the solid block for the bottom piece. Drool over it .

Bottom Aluminum

I faced the bottom piece with the acrylic together to save some time.

Facing

Close-Up!

This is a fairly big block of material. The size escapes you in the pictures. It's roughly 45mm thick and 220mm x 280mm big.

Hunk-o-Material

Someone was wondering how I was going to clamp the case down. I haven't let onto that yet, so I'll continue to keep that my secret! Here is my solution to better hold the pieces together instead of all those clamps (and so I could leave the thing running overnight). I drilled holes through the aluminum, partly into the acrylic. I then tapped the acrylic portion, and put screws through the aluminum to the acrylic! Solid!

Mounting Screws

Mounting Screw Close-Up

Mounting Screw Side Shot

When trying to write the program for the machining, I freaked out a bit at first. The acrylic piece is some random depth, meaning I faced one side and didn't face the others. If you've ever really worked with acrylic before, you know that it varies wildly in thickness over the entire material due to the polishing they do. So, with a piece of acrylic the same size as the aluminum, how would I get an accurate zero for the tools that didn't change much over the area of the material?

Ah hah! I don't need a portion of the acrylic, and the aluminum IS faced, so the aluminum can be my zero! I was very proud of myself after figuring this out! :clap:

Zeroing

The piece sitting there is a machined (very accurately) 2" zero tool. It creates an electrical connection between the top and the bottom when the tool hits the surface, turning the light on. I love this thing.

Zeroing

The program I wrote would take 22 hours-ish. It's a very big piece, and I didn't have the feed rate up very high since I could just leave it overnight and do other things, so I wasn't really concerned with how long it took. I'll update you guys tomorrow with what's left after the piece is done!

As for a teaser...

Teaser

 

[JWD1989]

UNNNGGGHHHHH!!!! I get on the Worklog thread everday hoping to see something like this Awesome work so far, I only wish I could do CNC work like this Keep it up and looking forward to updates!!!

 

[formula409]

Man...i dream of doing a project like this...very nice!

 

[Achron]

Good news....all of the big pieces are CNCed! Yay! The only things left are the frontplate, the mounting pieces, and the motherboard backplate (some dimensions were a tiny bit off on the first one).

On Sunday, I was in the process of making the other side piece. Since I forgot to take pictures of the first one, I took some this time! Look at the amount of chips there were...insane!

The plan? To go from big, to small!

I love this tool...3mm at a time.

Chips Galore!

Starting of the CNC

Ta Da!

While this was running, I made the connecting rods out of stainless. These rods have an inside thread on the bottom and an outside thread on the top. The top screws into the top aluminum. The bottom is made such that a bolt can be screwed in from underneath the bottom aluminum, into the stainless rod. This clamps the pieces down, pulling everything together. Here's what I mean:

Connecting Rods

Drilling the Ends

Threading

Threading in Action

Connecting Rod

All 4!

Here's a process picture of what was waiting for me after the teaser picture I left you before:

Bottom being CNCd

And here's a shot of everything assembled (not screwed in or pinned).

With Flash

With Flash Close-Up

Without Flash Close-Up

Without Flash

I'm working on the little pins now...which are a pain in the ass and will most likely drive me mad over the next few days. I can only deal with doing 6 or so at a time before I start going nuts, so it may take a bit :eeek:.

Then, it's sanding time!

 

[mannyman]

Awesome work!

 

[Mohonri]

I swear there is no more beautiful material in this world than machined aluminum. Great work so far!

 

[Colonel_Panic]

Just found this thread, and it's impressive! Great work with Solidworks and MasterCAM.

I swear there is no more beautiful material in this world than machined aluminum. Great work so far!

No doubt.

Where did you find the reference dimensions for the mITX mobo standard?

 

[Achron]

Just found this thread, and it's impressive! Great work with Solidworks and MasterCAM.



No doubt.

Where did you find the reference dimensions for the mITX mobo standard?

Thank you much. Follow this link to see the dimensions (http://www.formfactors.org/developer/specs/Mini-ITX Addendum_V1_Feb 2009.pdf).


1/9/2011

1/10/2011

Well @#(*$&. Seems like the edge of the bit caught something, or some rapid move moved too fast, and took a nice chunk out of my material. I have to re-make 3 parts. *sigh*. I checked the program, and this shouldn't have happened. Gr.

1/10/2011

Oh well. I found some material, and I'm already most of the way done with roughing out the shapes to be CNCed. You can be damn sure next time nothing like this will happen!

1/18/2011

Good news! I'm finally caught up to where I was about 2 weeks ago. It wouldn't have taken this long, but I just started my last quarter and a lab is kicking my ass! We coded a logo by hand to run on the CNC (g-code). Just XYZ points. My logo was a little excessive, thus why I've been quite busy. It has about 1000 lines of code! Take a look!

Cute, eh?

Well, here's what you've all (hopefully) been waiting for. Dead pieces! Argh. *******s!

And, a nice shot of the top piece on it's way to be finished, finally! I'm very happy that it all worked out in the end (fingers crossed) and I didn't have to scrap anything.

You'd be surprised as to how light the thing is now. I probably machined half of each aluminum piece off with the roughing pass. More pics to come soon. Sanding, fitting, and sleeving time is almost near!

 

[Achron]

2/1/2010

Hello all, and Happy February! I've been buuuuusy lately, but also busy with the project! I'm in the midst of working on it right now, but I figured I would give you guys a little teaser. More to come!

2/3/2010

Finally, an update!

No work done the past day though, seems as if I'm coming down with a cold. Dammit!

Going back a few weeks...here's a few shots of the top in the CNC (the old screwed up top, not the new one!)

And my lovely 3/4" BEM.

All 26 of those stupid pins I had to make. Argh, what a pain. Shameless plug!

Not many shots of the bottom being CNCed...let's face it, it kinda looks like the top (at least I would hope so!)

After it was done, sanding time!

All of those little lines you see are going bye-bye. At least at some point. The sanding is tough work, and I broke my elbow about 5 months ago, and this is definitely making it sore. We shall see how long it takes!


2/15/2010

Hmph. Page 3. Seems as if I'll have to start updating a little more often!

I kept putting it off, but it had to be done! I tapped a few holes here.

All tapped!

I still haven't ordered any screws or washers yet. I should probably make a list and get on that eventually.

I've been working on the faceplate recently, trying to get most of the main machining done as soon as possible since my quarter is wrapping up here in a month.

I did a little test run to fix / correct / adjust some things before I made the real one. Here's a few shots of the test faceplate in the CNC.

Finished test piece!

Honestly, I think I just love the coolant shots :clap:. Also, I've had a recent obsession with solid carbide end mills. They're better than sex. Really...I'm serious.

After the test piece I could start working on the real piece. Some final adjustments however, I added a millimeter to the outside edges. This is so that when I do mount the front plate, any inconsistencies in the body shape or mounting of the plate have room to adjust (that extra millimeter). I can always sand, but I can't add material.

Also, you can see which faceplate design I'm going with.

Expect another update pretty soon, I have a lot of pictures I haven't posted yet!

 

[antioch]

MOAR!

 

[Achron]

2-17-2010

Well I haven't had any progress on the case since this weekend, but I figured I would post a little somethin' somethin' to keep you busy until I do.

I ordered some sleeving from MDPC-x quite a while ago. I just never got around to posting the pictures! As for color choice, I got some red, white, black, and grand bleu (which is the most gorgeous color ever invented).

Wait a minute...that looks a little lighter than grand bleu!

Yup, most definitely is. They must have sent me the wrong one! After a quick conversation with Nils, they sent me the grand blue rather quickly! As a side note, I must say that their service is impeccable and attitude and generosity to their customers is amazing. Great people and service. Thank you guys!

So, after getting the grand bleu...here's a few shots of each color.

The finale!

I also ordered a ton of acrylic polish...because let's face it, I'll probably need more than this! This stuff is awesome, by the way.

Hope that keeps you enticed until the weekend!


2-21-2010

The top layer alone should be sufficient - heck, it's so huge!

Actually, it's not as big as you would think from the pictures. It's probably equivalent to a 3/16" thick piece with the area of the case. If the acrylic weren't there, and I didn't already have my mind set on a heatsink fan, then I would reconsider. Here's a shot of the internals. No heatpipes can be routed to the bottom alu piece, there's simply no room. No heatpipes can be routed to the top pieces because of the logistics of assembly.

Also, Waynio, I don't think heat will be a big of an issue as people think. The CPU shouldn't be stressed terribly since any HD playback will be hardware accelerated from the onboard GPU. If anything, I'm worried about the northbridge getting hot (which is why I'm looking for an alternative northbridge heatsink, one that is preferably copper). Also, the case itself should add quite a bit of thermal mass, acting as one big heatsink if the temperatures get well above ambient.


Let me set something straight here. I'm going to go through, step by step, as to how this thing will be put together, with pictures!


Step 1: Assemble blu-ray drive with removable mounts.

Step 2: Attach said assembly to bottom aluminum piece.

Step 3: Attach bottom acrylic piece to assembly.

Step 4: Install motherboard.

Step 5: Assemble frontplate.

Step 6: Add side aluminum pieces to frontplate.

Step 7: Assemble bottom pieces.

Step 8: Assemble top aluminum pieces, top acrylic piece, spacers, and hard drive / hard drive mount.

Step 9: Assemble top piece.

Step 10: Motherboard plate. Done!

5-2-2010

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!

5-4-2010

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 :wallbash:. 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!

 

[Achron]

I apologize for not really keeping the log on this site. If you want to take a look at the log in it's entirety, please go here http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=178915&page=1

Else, here are some final pictures.