[sdiy] Metal enclosures - DIY'ing ?

Thu Jun 14 09:53:21 CEST 2018

Great advice, Roman! I’m going to try this on this CNC very soon.

I’m guessing if you get it right, you can bend it by hand? Although I’ve been thinking about hydraulics a lot lately, I think once you’ve got a hydraulic press you could use it for bending and punching.

Rob Spencer

07590 267835

From: Synth-diy <synth-diy-bounces at synth-diy.org> on behalf of Roman <modular at go2.pl>
Date: Thursday, 14 June 2018 at 06:45
To: "sleepy_dog at gmx.de" <sleepy_dog at gmx.de>, "synth-diy at synth-diy.org" <synth-diy at synth-diy.org>
Subject: Re: [sdiy] Metal enclosures - DIY'ing ?

I'm using 2mm 5754 for most of the things and it bends like a dream. It was made for bending.
But to bend a long side of the case you need industrial machine. Once I tried to do 45cm long side with simple hand-driven bender and it almost killed me. Not really, but it felt like that.
After that experience I mill 4mm wide groove 1mm deep and it bends a whole lot easier and also gives very nice edge. Not to mention the location of the edge is determined by milling and not accidental placement of the sheet in the bender.

Roman

Dnia 13 czerwca 2018 21:08 Roman <sleepy_dog at gmx.de> napisał(a):

Thanks guys for the replies so far, despite my somewhat unfocused message ;-)

I don' want to bend 4 sides no, 2 is fine.

Ah yes, bend the long sides for the front panel for stability - good hint!

As for brittle 6061 aluminum - i remember having read something about some types which don't bend well at room temperature could be put into an oven, IIRC they axplicitly said baking oven, so no insanely high temperatures (although probably still a challenge to handle for bending).

I guess I need to research that more.

Don't know if such cheap bending device would allow it, but I wouldn't necessarily mind a not so tight radius, look at the MiniMoog Model D case, it has a huge radius, IIRC.

Will have to research about 5052 - I read softer aluminum is "gummier" and loads the tool more, my feeble router may not be made for that.

> Don't get me wrong im not trying to put you off though...... Quite the opposite it's great to see someone willing to put the energy in to even thinking of the options :)

> Seems diy these days for many means paint by numbers kits that include a panel already punched and screened for them. 

D-I-Y or die!

(ok, maybe not ;) But doesn't it have a ring to it)

- Steve

Am 13.06.2018 um 03:11 schrieb John Marshall:

6061-T6 is the most common aluminum alloy. However it is brittle and my crack if bent too sharply. T6 is the temper rating. 5052 is more easily bent in a tight radius.

John L Marshall

wa7bsr at gmail.com

www.sound-photo.com

From: Quincas Moreira

Sent: Tuesday, June 12, 2018 5:49 PM

To: luther.rochester at gmail.com

Cc: synth-diy mailing list

Subject: Re: [sdiy] Metal enclosures - DIY'ing ?

The way I do it is 2mm Aluminum, bent only on top and bottom, then I make wood sides. Much easier than trying to bend all 4 sides, and looks good too!  That's for the Chassis, then goes the panel, bolted to the wood sides and to L brackets attached to the aluminum chassis.

On Tue, Jun 12, 2018 at 6:50 PM luther rochester <luther.rochester at gmail.com> wrote:

1.5mm aluminum should be fine for most panels, provided you have bends 

in the long side (which provides a lot of extra strength).

Like you mentioned, you might not get good clean bends with those cheap 

brakes (benders) though; I haven't used one, but a good one is 200+ KG.

As you If you want to be able to bend all 4 sides you need a box/pan 

brake, which is much more expensive.

Also, depending on the brake you might be limited to how shallow you can 

make the box (the side shown by '?' here):

+--------------------------------+

|                                | <----?

+-o-                          -o-+

For example my, brake can only do about 40mm or larger for this side, 

provided you want two bends.

If you're just doing one or two projects it might be worth finding a 

fabrication shop that will make it for you. It would probably end up 

being the same price or cheaper, and you might get better results.

--

luther

On 6/9/18 5:25 AM, sleepy_dog at gmx.de wrote:

> Hey list.

> 

> I just looked at some pictures of Moog synths like Model D, and even 

> more so, Voyager, again, and I must say I'm quite a fan of that kind of 

> case design and the fact you can tilt the upper part up to your liking, 

> and back in for less cumbersome transportation.

> 

> Ok, apart from that, more generally: The upper part - metal case for 

> audio electronics, with front panel.

> 

> Is that steel, or aluminum, or more importantly, whatever it is - 

> *could* you make that out of aluminum and it's be stable enough?

> Probably only depends on the thickness. But I have no experience with 

> such things.

> 

> So, is 1.5mm, or even 1.2mm, thickness of aluminum something that could 

> work decently for a case roughly Moog Voyager case sized? (I would be 

> willing "cheat" with some reinforcement bars here and there if that's 

> what it takes ;))

> 

> Why 1.5mm (1.2) alu? Because that's the max thickness (for alu) handled 

> by the strongest of those manually operated sheet metal bending machines 

> that are fixed with a sturdy vice or such, for longer lengths it's only 

> 1,2mm. You turn a lever, presumably while making bear-like noises... 

> Well, those are floatnig around on ebay (here anyway) for 100...200 EUR, 

> depending on the max material length and thickness.

> 

> 

> There you read my assumption - that one could bend parts of such a case 

> yourself. Perhaps not exactly like the Voyager - it looks like the upper 

> "5/6th of a box" are one part, or at least bent around two axes - they 

> would be in each others way if I tried that with such a contraption I 

> guess. And then just a plate at the bottom.

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ku0BdjNasko&t=2m32s

> But maybe one could bend two halves, one "grabs around" in vertical, the 

> other in horizontal direction? Not only bending sides/front/back, but 

> another slimmer rim, another 90 degrees, to drill holes into and fix the 

> other part onto.

> 

> (if it's not displayed with monospace font at your end, too bad ;))

> +--------------------------------+

> |                                |

> +-o-                          -o-+

> 

> 

> Anyway, if it turns out that 1.5mm aluminum* is far too thin for this, 

> at least for that size, I may forget about DIYing here (for things of 

> that size anyway), as I don't think I'd buy something much more 

> expensive than said contraptions for this purpose.

> 

> * no harder than, I think it was called "6061". Because that's something 

> I can actually route openings out of, with my weak China CNC router.

> 

> 

> - Steve

> 

> 

> _______________________________________________

> Synth-diy mailing list

> Synth-diy at synth-diy.org

> http://synth-diy.org/mailman/listinfo/synth-diy

_______________________________________________

Synth-diy mailing list

Synth-diy at synth-diy.org

http://synth-diy.org/mailman/listinfo/synth-diy

--

Quincas Moreira

Test Pilot at VBrazil Modular

_______________________________________________
Synth-diy mailing list
Synth-diy at synth-diy.org
http://synth-diy.org/mailman/listinfo/synth-diy

_______________________________________________

Synth-diy mailing list

Synth-diy at synth-diy.org

http://synth-diy.org/mailman/listinfo/synth-diy

_______________________________________________ Synth-diy mailing list Synth-diy at synth-diy.org http://synth-diy.org/mailman/listinfo/synth-diy 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://synth-diy.org/pipermail/synth-diy/attachments/20180614/550b8039/attachment.htm>