PLS MiCRO and MiCRO XL Laser Housing Platform

[dave]

Laser cutting aluminium doesn't work real well. It will leave a lot of dags and what not.. Might Water jet cutting be a better choice?

The first order has been submitted, and manufacturing has begun! We decided to use a laser cutter, instead of having the panels punched, for time and cost considerations. (Yo' dawg, we heard you like lasers...)

We went ahead and had a few extra made, beyond what has been ordered, so we'll have some for taking good pictures of.

Cheers,
LL

[platinum]

We'll post some photos of other laser-cut examples we had to work with tomorrow. It turns out really well.

Laser cutting aluminium doesn't work real well. It will leave a lot of dags and what not.. Might Water jet cutting be a better choice?

[chad]

Dave, laser cutting aluminum works well if you have enough laser power. I have seen some really nice stuff. And in lower volumes it is cheaper than setting up a cnc punch especially if they don't have a d25 already.

chad

[laserlackey]

Here's an example of the edge quality on .125" 5052. As you can see, it's very clean. There is some little burrs on the lead-in/lead-out, but that's easily taken care of with a small file.

[laserlackey]

3/8" aluminum plate, made in the USA at Alcoa, ready to be turned into your laser cases! [edit] not sure why it flipped my image

[chad]

Hey, just a suggestion. Next time use mic6 6061 tooling plate. It is already machined front and back flat. Those are going to be a bitch to surface..

.02c

chad

[laserlackey]

Hey, just a suggestion. Next time use mic6 6061 tooling plate. It is already machined front and back flat. Those are going to be a bitch to surface..

Yes, using mic6 was taken into consideration, but since we have to put the holes and counterbore on that surface, we couldn't justify the increase in price. Additionally, the mic6 would still have to be touched with a tool, since the outside surfaces will be anodized. It would look odd if only the top and bottom were a different finish quality than the sides.

For those that don't know, I own and operate a machine shop, which I inherited from my dad, who's been a machinist since the 60's (he served as a machinist in the Navy, working on aircraft carriers, mostly). Some of my regular customers include Tektronix, Garmin, FLIR, nLight, and Boeing, to name a few. These laser cases have been designed with as much thought and attention to detail that I put into all of our products. I chose to partner with Jonathan (Platinum) because I saw that same level of detail and thought put into his work. he just needed the help of someone with a machine shop at their disposal.

I have full confidence that you will be pleased with what you see when we get some pictures up here.

[platinum]

Here are a few photos I took real quick before these are sent off to the anodizer:

[sugeek]

Looking good Jonathan! I hope to see one in person in the near future.

[f150trk21]

whats this one weigh roughly?