Author Topic: Questions for stacked acrylic case design  (Read 2890 times)

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Offline mxrixs

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Questions for stacked acrylic case design
« on: Thu, 14 January 2021, 03:21:22 »
Hello, I am a pretty new member to the hobby and I wanted to do a fully custom design for a macropad.
To not break the budget and to make my life easier I decided to do a stacked acrylic build and a custom pcb.

However I am currently stuck with a few questions.

1 How does mounting work if I don't want an acrylic piece to be my plate?
   Will I just have to integrate the plate into the stack?
   What other options are there and how easy/cost effective are they? I can imagine top and tray mount to also be easily possible.

2 Can I buy pre-made feet or gasket for gasket mounting anywhere?
    The zenith feet for the RAMA board may be fitting but I cant find any specifications for them as they are treated exclusively as a replacement.

3 How do I want to handle the screws? I have a feeling that trying to screw metal screws into the plain acrylic may cause some problems over time
   Will some sort of plastic screw help with this problem?

4 I am from central Europe. Are there any manufacturers you can recommend near me for getting the Case and PCB manufactured?
   Any general tips you may have or things you noticed that I overlooked or that may cause me problems?

Thanks a lot  ;)

Offline Bitdrive

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Re: Questions for stacked acrylic case design
« Reply #1 on: Mon, 08 February 2021, 18:07:28 »
Sup, no expert on this just what i think you could do for the acrylic

You pretty much have two options with the screws either use stand-offs like most people do or tap the holes and use regular screws, the latter id imagine is a bit harder since you’d have to get the tolerances right so the hole is small enough to to tap and also not being too small, which is imagine would be a pain considering the tolerances with lasercutting but it should work fine

Offline xudongz

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Re: Questions for stacked acrylic case design
« Reply #2 on: Mon, 08 February 2021, 23:45:57 »
Typically you want the holes a bit bigger than the screws. For M3 (3mm screws), make the holes 3.1mm. You can then put a screw through it and a hex nut on the other end.

Elecrow is one company that can cut acrylic and manufacture PCBs. JLCPCB is another PCB manufacturer that's pretty commonly used.

Some people also try to use FR4 (PCB) layers instead of acrylic layers as that can be cheaper.
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