Ok so the MDF rushed way didn’t work very well, but I still wanted a nice seamless box so after investigating a few different options I decided to go with Ponoko and get some laser-cut acrylic. I found a little tutorial at instructables, downloaded Google SketchUp and Inkscape and made a template for my monome. It’s a little bit wasteful to be fair, but I wanted to have a few spare parts to play about with in order to get the process right. If anyone wants my design you can get it here – but be warned it won’t all click together as is there’s a lot more work to be done!
I was very impressed with what I got from Ponoko, it looked so neat! And about a million times neater than my attempt with the MDF!! Laser-cut material is usually only ever cut at 90 degrees and I needed 45 degree cuts to make my seamless box – i.e. I didn’t want any dove joints or anything like that, I just wanted the join to be on the edge of the box.
Here’s a pic of what I got from Ponoko:
With my Dad helping out (if I tried these parts on my own I wouldn’t have fingers to type this blog with) we set up a rig with a router and a table to cut the edges at 45 degrees. After a good bit of trial and error we finally got it so that it would cut away exactly at the edge give or take a few nanometres – it was very satisfying seeing the paper slightly curl up as we passed the pieces by the router. We ended up using a couple of bits of scrap metal to keep the rig as straight and level as possible – without these the wooden box had a natural dip in it from the weight of the router which would result in inconsistent edges. You could of course hire a proper router table but where’s the fun in that? Here’s a close up of the setup:
Here’s a pass of the top plate:
And a corner of the bottom plate with 2 45 degree cuts (see how it’s going to come together yet?):
We stuck the side pieces together to do them all in one pass (one has a laser cut hole for the usb port):
Now all the plates have 45 degree cuts on all their edges, next step is to stick them all together…
2 comments:
How much did it cost?
I am thinking of do the same so i would like to hear what you should give.
Hi Johannes,
- The laser-cut acrylic was $147 www.ponoko.com
- The Arduinome PCB was about GBP£25 (1/5th of a group buy of 5) www.pcbtrain.com
- Electronics from SparkFun (button pads + PCBs, Arduino & RGB LEDs) was $246 but you could save a lot and not use RGB LEDs I only used one colour in the end (take $100 or so off) www.SparkFun.com
- Other electronics were about GBP£10 from Rapid www.rapidonline.com
- I got various tools borrowed and bought but I won't include them here.
So all in all, about $300-$500.
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