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Vaccum Forming?

FLECOM

FLECOM

Modder(ator) & [H]ardest Folder Evar
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anont know any companies that will vaccum form one part without charging some insane amount of money?

ive tried google but i havent really been able to find anything...

i want to get the cover from a hard drive made into clear plastic for a sweet hd-window on a really sweet drive, but the cover is kinda complex, so a simple piece of plexi over it just wont work ;)
 
clear casting resin will work, sort of. It is brittle when cast very thin and may crack easily when attaching it with screws. Not to mention getting it to dry (i.e.with out a sticky surface) properly can be challenging for somone who has never used it before. Creating molds out of silicone and the cost of the resin itself can be prohibitive also. tap's clear resin is called Clear-lite. One way you might try is a bit involved, but the results will be similar to vacume forming. but should only cost you a few bucks for some plaster and a piece of acrylic

create a mold of the top of your hdd out of plaster. apply some mold release to it and cast a copy of the hdds top in plaster (put some tooth picks in the wet plaster so you can pull the copy out of the paster mold).
So you have a positive and negative of the hdds top.
now cut a piece of acrylic about 3 times the size of the actual hdds top. This acrylic should be about 1/16" thick. place the acrylic over your first mold and heat it with a heat gun. once it is nice and saggy press the copy of your hdds top into the plexi forcing it into the first mold. You may have to heat and press 4 or 5 times to stretch the plexi. The plaster may scuff the plexi in some places, but a little Novus will polish it right up. this should give you a reasonably accurate copy that can be fitted to the hdd with a little trimming. that's all for this class, that'll be 500$ please, paypal accepted :)
 
well, couldent i just place the 1/16 plexi over the top itself and heat it and form it to the shape of the cover then?

the thing is the cover has like nearly 90 degree angles

here is a pic of the cover

st34502lc.jpg
 
I know I've seen better, but here is a little bit of a decent page on how to DIY vacuum form -- http://www.starwarz.com/modelshop/vacuum.htm

Honestly, IMO, you'd be better off making it of a piece of acyrlic or plexi and having that raised section machined out of it.

The only reason I'd suggest against this, would be the less of waranty on your drive(s). Personally, I've had to send in for a LOT of RMA's on drives before. :)
 
Originally posted by 8Complex
Honestly, IMO, you'd be better off making it of a piece of acyrlic or plexi and having that raised section machined out of it.

The only reason I'd suggest against this, would be the less of waranty on your drive(s). Personally, I've had to send in for a LOT of RMA's on drives before. :)
Click to expand...

but then where would i get it machined?

do you mean leave it metal and just replace the top part with plexi?

i would really like to make the whole drive plexi so that i am sure that the drive is still completely sealed, it has some crazy gaskets between the cover and the drive itself that im sure would work fine if i made the cover complately out of plexi, and im not worried becuase this drive dosent have any "breather" holes like a lot of newer drives do

im not worried about the drive, its dead already and not under warantee...

what im planning on doing is making the plexi cover, and then buying another 9gb cheetah (like ~$10 on ebay) and replacing the cover on that one like ninja super fast omfg dust is going to get in style with the one i already made, since most of the older cheetahs use these covers, the 4~18gb 10k ones
 
Part of your concern should be what the underside of the cover looks like. If it is anything other than the look of the topside, you may need the machining. If not, the mold making sounds like a pretty easy (relative statement) way to go about it.
 
well, couldent i just place the 1/16 plexi over the top itself and heat it and form it to the shape of the cover then?
Click to expand...
well no, you need both negative and positive to get the form right, plexi is sor of rubbery when heated and will just spring back a bit if you try it that way, not to mention you dont want the plexi to stick to any of that stuff on the drives top.
 
to add to what bonzanego said, if you just try to use the drive top as your mold plug, the inside of your cast plexi will be the same saize as the outside part of your drive top....

for example--
original drive top size: c
resulting plexi size: C
parts together: Cc

Hope that ascii art helps :D

If you want the same exact size, go with bonzanego's original directions... if you don't have a heat gun, you can always use the oven for softening the plexi.
 
Possibly I misunderstood, but I thought you just wanted the top part replaced with plexi.

Machining it would have to be done with a mill... it'd be pretty easy to machine if you simplified the raised section to a rectangle, so you could probably find a cool machinist to do it for a case of beer, if you asked around some people that work with them a lot. :)

I wouldn't worry a whole lot about dust considering most drives have breather holes, right?

I kinda like the idea of using it as a mold and somehow molding a clear substance over it, then cutting it to size, but I would have no idea what to use. You could basically just lay it on a flat surface, cover it in the clear material, and then let it dry and seperate them. The indentation on the top would be a little larger outwards, but that is fine, it just means more room for things to clear in there.
 
Hey 8Complex, were you at that site to look at making your own Stormtrooper outfit? (Ive been to that site many times, never had the time to do it :) )
 
Originally posted by Xeese
Part of your concern should be what the underside of the cover looks like. If it is anything other than the look of the topside, you may need the machining. If not, the mold making sounds like a pretty easy (relative statement) way to go about it.
Click to expand...

the underside really dosent matter, its nothing special, just the two holes, one for the arms and the one for the platters

bonzanego would you be willing to do your magic on it? ;)
 
Originally posted by kort0175
Hey 8Complex, were you at that site to look at making your own Stormtrooper outfit? (Ive been to that site many times, never had the time to do it :) )
Click to expand...
Yes! That was the site I was trying to find. I remember looking that up ages ago, probably around 1997 or so. :LOL:
 
listen to bonz......he said the exact thing I was thinking
Click to expand...
qtip and I share a brain btw :)

reminds me of a quote from the movie Citizen X

"You know, the two of you make a nice person."
 
Originally posted by bonzanego
qtip and I share a brain btw :)

reminds me of a quote from the movie Citizen X

"You know, the two of you make a nice person."
Click to expand...

you willing to make some for me or am i going to have to actually figure this out? ;)
 
Be sure to copy the bottom/back of the part. The side that mates with the rest of the hard drive to get a good fit.

Here is a place that does machining http://www.emachineshop.com/ but you need to draw out the part.
 
i wish i had time to do it,but between the move and upcomnig fan grill deals i am swamped, you have, however piqued my intrest in this. There are HDDs at frys on display with clear covers, display models only to show off the guts but they looks slick as hell, why hasnt WD or maxtor put these on themsleves i wonder. I might try this on one of my older drives when i get relocated. Keep me informed if you go ahead and try this.
 
I would just take two pieces of acrylic, cut both to the size of the top of the HDD. Take the bottom piece of acrylic and carve out the center so that you only have the edge’s and around the screw holes. Run up to your local auto parts store and grab yourself a rubber gasket kit (the thin stuff like for carb parts), and cut out a gasket to go in-between the two peaces of acrylic. Then just find yourself some longer screws, throw in some LED’s and your good to go. It would seem to be Ezer then all that forming jiba jaba…
 
since the drive you have is already dead and you are going to use replacement drives why not take the drive apart and take the parts you want out of plexy to a machine shop? sometimes you can find a little machine shop that has CNC equipment where the owner operater will give you a good deal if you pay cash, or see if he needs any computer needs;)
 
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