[sdiy] Laser cut enclosure advice needed

[Mike Beauchamp]

Hi Terry,
If you do your design in any vector program (inkscape, illustrator,
etc.) or any CAD program you should be able to send the files to a laser
cutting service. Off the top of my head there is ponoko.com, and they
are located in Wellington New Zealand. I'm not sure if they ship from
Wellington, but it could get a bit pricey. Seems like there are a lot of
places online now actually that do laser cutting. Depending on where you
are, there might be a local laser cutting place that you could talk to.
Those guys might deal in very specific file formats and expect customers
to have proper CAD files and all of that, but it might be worth a try.
Another option might be a nearby "Tech Shop" or maker space that would
have a laser cutter and some people with experience doing what you're
doing.

You could definitely do finger joints, box joints, slots and other
joining methods with laser cut pieces. Some joints allow you to use nuts
and bolts as well. Laser cutting acrylic does leave nice edges, but if
all you have available is CNC routing then polishing up the edges is
very easy with a torch (lots of youtube vidoes showing this and how to
properly bond acrylic). Laser cutting has the advantage of a really
really small kerf, allowing more intricate shapes.

Mike



On Sat, 2012-09-22 at 14:37 -0400, KA4HJH wrote:
> I need to fabricate an enclosure for a Geiger counter, er, I mean *random event module* (keeping it on-topic). I have a simple design worked out in my mind but I don't know where to have it cut. Also, it would be really nice if I could have some channels cut halfway through the top and bottom pieces so the side pieces can interlock.
> 
> Has anyone done this? Can it be done? I know I could just have the whole thing CNC milled but laser cutting leaves polished surfaces.
> 
>  
> Terry Bowman, KA4HJH
> "The Mac Doctor"
> 
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