Only caution is the cutting of the abs. It wants to melt on me, so i’ve cut them a bit larger and am sanding the edges with a dremel to fit. Not something you want to get into when mass-producing them.
I bet your laser cutter folks would be able to crank them out with perfect precision though.
For my setup, I'm all for you doing whatever you need to regarding cost- and time-saving. I know I'll have a great product no matter how it's finally spec'd out, and optimization just makes sense as the process goes along :)
I’m ok with whatever is more cost effective, easier, faster and achieves the same result. I know the product will be high quality no matter what you do.
Ok, Tomorrow I am going to try to finish up the outstanding MT09R mods I have here and the next day I will see about making up an adapter for the sphere to use laser cut centering discs instead of 3D printed.
The end results should be the same either way, this will be much quicker and a bit cheaper for me as well.
I agree, I was thinking on it and I think I might of come up with an even better way of doing it, a bit more labor but should work good. Then just need to get the centering rings laser cut. I can do a 24” x 12” piece at a time and each sheet should take less then 15 minutes to cut. So I can finish it in a slow afternoon if all goes well.
I found that a piece of 4” PVC pipe almost fits over the outside of the 3” perfectly, I just have to sand off some little nubs on the outside of the 3” fittings for it to fit and then cut a bunch of short pieces of 4” pipe. Which might actually be a deal breaker since I sold my miter saw a few months ago.
the 4” I would still need to 3D print either way, I will start off with that and see how things go.
For the laser cutting, I could possibly stack a few but this laser cutter is only 50w, it works great but does not like cutting through very thick materials.
I don’t have much time tonight but just wanted to give a quick update. Spent the afternoon working on the centering ring issue and nkresho’s idea is a far better idea for this situation I think, the end result could in fact be better then what I first panned.
I really like the materials I ended up with and while it takes a fair amount more labor, well thats what family is for when the skill level is low right? lol
I got some pictures of the stack of stuff, think small refrigerator sized pile of stuff. I will try to post them tomorrow.
What worries me is when they are spread out all over the place and then shipping. I never even thought about boxes for this many large items. That could prove a challenge. I am working through them though.
The lux meters will hopefully be here at the end of the week, possibly early next week. I want to have everything ready for calibration when they show up.
I assume you will add a bit of glue to the main pieces of pvc pipe so it can’t be taken apart. If it is, then the diffusers might get rotated and lose it’s calibration.
The inlet section that is aimed upward I can see leaving unglued. Rotate it flat for shipping and have a mark where it should be rotated 90° to face upward again.
These should not need much packing material as the pvc is so robust. Just wrap the meter and centering rings well and put it in the center.
Well, I am 4 hours in at the laser cutter so far, think I have about 1/8 of them cut at this point. Took me a few hours to get the settings figured out and now I am having to run it at 15% speed which takes for stinking ever for each cut.
I am really liking this new setup, even more then the first setup.
Thanks for all your work on these TA. I’m sure by the time its over you will have decided you charged way too little for them We’ll be very grateful though.
On the glue situation, I know they’ll have to be glued some in order to keep things lined up for calibration. That’s fine, good even. I want mine to stay together. But I do hope any of the “vertical” pieces can be left loose so they can rotate down for storage. I don’t know about everyone else, but I don’t have a good place where I can leave mine out all the time. I’ll need to be able to fold it up and put it away…somehow. If at all possible.