This week was mostly focused on iterating and experimenting with fabrication techniques.

It started off with a print hot off the Objet of the latest optics housing.

The resolution off this thing is excellent, though it's definitely not the most cost effective approach for each unit. We'll likely use this proof print as a positive to cast some acrylic molds.

On the shell front, rather than vacuum forming or casting, I decided to play a bit with the idea of folding together a shell out of laser cut sheet metal. I want to go for something low poly, a sort of modified dodecahedron.

I used 123D Make to unfold the mesh into something that could be laser cut.

And sent it to the Epilog...

Seems like an interesting approach, though it might drive a fabricator crazy. Vacuum forming will probably be fastest for something with this many facets.

We also finally got our heads wrapped around CNC milling the bearing blocks. There's a definite art to it that's going to take some time to master.

To start off we faced down the stock to the dimensions of the final piece (and to shred away the evidence of last week's mistake). After that we used some adaptive clearing to mill out the pocket.

We'll still need to clean it out with a ball end mill, and then bore out the axle and mounting holes, but it's certainly starting to look study enough to survive.