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A project log for Grinder Minder

Bench Grinders are everywhere. So are fingers. May the two never meet. That's where grinder minder comes in.

scottmcgimpseyscott.mcgimpsey 08/07/2019 at 00:020 Comments

I went from design of a case to prototype in hand over the last few days, and snagged some photos of the process. Here's the shots, with short descriptions.

I quickly modeled the case with 3d printing in mind -- Notice the box walls are all 45 degree chamfers, and that the top of the box is a separate element entirely to prevent the sloppiness of overhangs. The bottom, where the board will mount, has very thick chamfered standoffs to compensate for the weakness typically seen with narrow bodies printed using FFF printing.

Assembled in 3d.

The body STL, pre-slicing in Cura.

The 3d print of the body, about 4 hours in. Notice how there was no overhang issue at the edges. :D

The completed body section. After I pull this off, I'll just have the mounting plate and the top to make.

The same body, flipped 180 to face right-ways up.

A (blurry) shot of the mounting plate with the built in standoffs. If we need to remake this, I'm going to buy some shorter screws to drop the total height of those standoffs, and pass the hole through the bottom so it can attach to rubber feet. Time to start on the top plate.

Instead of 3d printing the top plate, I decided to laser cut some acrylic sheet. I replicated the measurements for the panel in Inkscape, vectorized the HaD logo, and made a quick case name. The gray section was just my notation of the safe space to work in for graphics -- I deleted the gray block and flipped the graphics prior to saving to ensure that the engraved sections were facing inside the box.

I tossed the acrylic panel on my cheap K40 laser cutter, and used K40Whisperer to send the instructions out to the device.

Damn beautiful.

Installation with a few M3 screws. I used a standard fit on the holes on the acrylic, and a bit of a snug fit on the screw holes so they'd effectively tap themselves into the body.

Interestingly enough, I -forgot- to properly size the holes on the mounting plate which hook the plate to the body, and had to tap right through the mounting plate. Damn. But something else to fix in the next version, I suppose. Good enough for what we need for the prototype! Now to decide on whether manufactured will be injection molded or pre-fabbed! 

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