GM5 half-case

[Sasha]

I`m not sure how to call it. Maybe, PCB protector.  :P

I don`t like dragging around exposed GM5 all the time, so I made this simple and cheap half box. It is laser cut acrylic, but it can be easily hand made out of any material. My laserman cut it out of white acrylic by mistake, so it looks like it is designed to go nice with Mac accessories, but that wasn`t my intention. It should be made out of smoked transparent acrylic, but what the heck.

[madox]

Hey, not bad. I hadn't thought of doing an open sided sandwich case.

Why did you get this one laser cut? Isn't that expensive? I would have thought two off the shelf box lids would have sufficed.

[Wilba]

Great idea, Sasha!

I'm doing exactly the same kind of construction for my next project :)

[stryd_one]

Why did you get this one laser cut? Isn't that expensive?

Sasha has hookups ;)

Yeh this method of case construction (the sandwich case) is really attractive. It looks cool, does the job, and is cheap as.

[Sasha]

Thank you all.

...Why did you get this one laser cut? Isn't that expensive?...

Madox, this is really small piece to cut, and just 3mm thick, so machine really cuts it quickly. I construct all I can using laser cutter. I have my own laserman who gives me discount for personal projects because he thinks I have some cool ideas. How nice is that?  :)

If I`m right, you are, like Stryd and Wilba from Australia too. There is a cool service in your neighbourhood - New Zeland, that you could try. Check out www.ponoko.com

[lylehaze]

very nice.

Good idea. Simple, attractive, protective.

I have a LOT of "naked" projects that could really use this kind of protection.

LyleHaze

[TK.]

Inspirative! :)

This is how I protect my GM5x5x5 from dust - I just mounted it under a table:

It's well hidden, but still easily accessible w/o moving the table - an ideal solution for prototyping:

Best Regards, Thorsten.

[Sasha]

Very good idea. I love it!  :) I`m sure it is better protected from dust than mune, as my GM5 lies on floor.

Let`s see some more GM5 housings. Everybody..?

[stryd_one]

Well let's just say they are a perfect fit for a 25 pack of cigarettes. (serious)

No pics because cigarettes are wack and I'm not advertising my murderers.

[Goblinz]

Well let's just say they are a perfect fit for a 25 pack of cigarettes. (serious)

No pics because cigarettes are wack and I'm not advertising my murderers.

They come in packs of 25? We only get 20 maximum over here, that and a huge amount of tax.

[SLP]

Awesome Idea. I've just mailed "my" Laserman  :P what it would cost to cut such a "case" for the GM5x5x5.

I've even found some nice plexiglass. It's black when you look at it, but it lets the light from the LEDs onthe PCB shine through.

[Sasha]

Thanks. Cost depends only which service you are using for cutting. I changed few of them, and the price difference is huge. As cutting is charged by time, some services are cutting with low power/speed so machine work much longer and they charged more it should. To cut 2 pieces like these (3mm thick), it takes about 1 minute in worst case.

The only online service I know is the one I linked below. Send them an email and I`m sure you`ll get quick answer. I met the owner over flickr, and he seamed a cool guy.

Anyway, this piece is really easy to make the same if you cut that acrylic by hand. It is square, so you wan`t get anything if you do it using laser. You can make it in a half an hour including sanding and assembling. To me it was easier, as I already cut something so I add this to the batch.

[SLP]

Anyway, this piece is really easy to make the same if you cut that acrylic by hand. It is square, so you wan`t get anything if you do it using laser. You can make it in a half an hour including sanding and assembling.

I imagine getting the round edges look exact the same could be a bit difficult by hand..

[Sasha]

I imagine getting the round edges look exact the same could be a bit difficult by hand..

Not really, I did the same before, many times. Mostly with plywood and MDF. If you screw two boards together before sanding you can make this job even easier. Try to do it with some scrap piece of acrilic. It only depends of your manual skills. Good thing.. as corner radius isn`t fixed value, you can correct eventual errors many times till you get it right.  :)