blue_luke
Well-known member
Hello all! 
I made a rather interesting encounter today but let me give you a few lines of Background...
I am 71, retired and still doing electronic, mostly audio and industrial design.
I am sometimes called for industrial electronic design as a consultant.
I am not at all in the process of starting a new business.
I hate making chassis and enclosures for my projects! But it need to be done, and done right.
Now the last line is the most important.... Beer with me
I am currently building a kind of preamp/mixer/matrix/headphones amp thingy.
It should be 2 U high.
Don't ask about this design, it is only made in 2 exemplaries for me and a recordist friend.
The point...
The f***** enclosure!!
Gnnnn!
If you go the cheap and "that will do" route, it's going to look ugly and messy.
If you want to have it look good and pro, it's going to be excrushciently expensive! (yes!)
There is no middle point!
And we all love to see our projects looking nice and pro after all the time and effort involved in designing/building a DIY piece of equipment, do we?
Soooooo, I went to a place that sells "aluminium". I wanted to buy some bars, plates, angles etc.... for this aforementioned project.
But the owner is much more into making exclusive design extrusions.
So I told him that I could not find what I needed and he ask me point blank what I was looking for.
I explained to him our common predicament and he suggested that he would be willing to invest in the cost of the die and a few hundred pound of aluminium to test the market provided I supply him with a proper design and handle the sales!
This is the kind of offer we can not pass!
But I will need some help.
I have a pretty good idea of what we need but I am terrible at CAD design. I am more old school and at ease with paper, rulers and lead pencil.... and pocket calculator!
I would need someone who is fluent with AutoCAD, or at least can supply drawings in DXF format. Maybe FreeCad, that I still can't master!
The gentleman knows his stuff when it comes to design a die, but we need to supply him with a good drawing.
I have a fairly good idea of an extrusion that can be used to build any size of chassis/enclosure, rack mount or desk top using this extrusion and simple flat piece of .065 thick aluminium plate covers and sides, but I need help with providing the final CAD drawings. It has to be AutoCad (DXF?) format.
Who's in?
The way I see it, the extrusion could be sold in small quantities of say minimum 1 meter (40") long or longer, Or I can add value service by cutting length to your spec if needed, everything is opened as the extrusions will be a standard 20 feet long. This is a standard in the field.
The cost of packaging and shipping will become a consideration, but we all want to be the stuff as affordable as possible and economically viable for the manufacturer.
By the way, prices will be quoted in CDN$ and only natural finish (raw surface) will be offered, at least as a starter.
Comments?
Ideas?
Suggestions?
Luc
I made a rather interesting encounter today but let me give you a few lines of Background...
I am 71, retired and still doing electronic, mostly audio and industrial design.
I am sometimes called for industrial electronic design as a consultant.
I am not at all in the process of starting a new business.
I hate making chassis and enclosures for my projects!
But it need to be done, and done right.Now the last line is the most important.... Beer with me
I am currently building a kind of preamp/mixer/matrix/headphones amp thingy.
It should be 2 U high.
Don't ask about this design, it is only made in 2 exemplaries for me and a recordist friend.
The point...
The f***** enclosure!!
Gnnnn!
If you go the cheap and "that will do" route, it's going to look ugly and messy.
If you want to have it look good and pro, it's going to be excrushciently expensive! (yes!)
There is no middle point!
And we all love to see our projects looking nice and pro after all the time and effort involved in designing/building a DIY piece of equipment, do we?
Soooooo, I went to a place that sells "aluminium". I wanted to buy some bars, plates, angles etc.... for this aforementioned project.
But the owner is much more into making exclusive design extrusions.
So I told him that I could not find what I needed and he ask me point blank what I was looking for.
I explained to him our common predicament and he suggested that he would be willing to invest in the cost of the die and a few hundred pound of aluminium to test the market provided I supply him with a proper design and handle the sales!
This is the kind of offer we can not pass!
But I will need some help.
I have a pretty good idea of what we need but I am terrible at CAD design. I am more old school and at ease with paper, rulers and lead pencil.... and pocket calculator!
I would need someone who is fluent with AutoCAD, or at least can supply drawings in DXF format. Maybe FreeCad, that I still can't master!
The gentleman knows his stuff when it comes to design a die, but we need to supply him with a good drawing.
I have a fairly good idea of an extrusion that can be used to build any size of chassis/enclosure, rack mount or desk top using this extrusion and simple flat piece of .065 thick aluminium plate covers and sides, but I need help with providing the final CAD drawings. It has to be AutoCad (DXF?) format.
Who's in?
The way I see it, the extrusion could be sold in small quantities of say minimum 1 meter (40") long or longer, Or I can add value service by cutting length to your spec if needed, everything is opened as the extrusions will be a standard 20 feet long. This is a standard in the field.
The cost of packaging and shipping will become a consideration, but we all want to be the stuff as affordable as possible and economically viable for the manufacturer.
By the way, prices will be quoted in CDN$ and only natural finish (raw surface) will be offered, at least as a starter.
Comments?
Ideas?
Suggestions?
Luc
