Close

Painting , Printing the enclosure

A project log for SEELablet : Instrument Cluster For Laboratories

Minimal, yet powerful combination of control and measurement tools integrated with an SBC running Python based UIs for science & Engg. Expts

jithinJithin 07/08/2016 at 05:260 Comments

Surface Texturing

Injection moulded plastic may not have the required surface finish unless one invests heavily in a high quality die textured using a large copper plate using EDM. Diamod polising the die is affordable , but glossy plastics are prone to scratches and easily pick up fingerprints and grease . In most cases (Toys, Back panels of tablets... ) , a layer of paint is added to the surface. A few different options were explored for doing this, and the local auto workshop also obliged by spray painting a few sample boxes .

Here are the results

I painted the silver box in the corner using a regular spray can.

Printing


After a couple of manual screen printing attempts, I finally settled on pad printing.
Manual screen print involves etching a patterned photoresist pasted on a porous membrane. Photo:

Here's how it looks along with the frame

The frame is placed on the surface to be printed , and a rubber pad is used to drag a thick layer of ink over the stencil.

Results with manual screen printing:



Finally settled on PAD printing, which is more expensive, but has much sharper resolution.

SVG version of Printing files . Even though I feel InkScape is far better and friendlier than Corel Draw, local workshops for laser cutting , pad printing, and even graphics printing insist on CDR files.


Discussions