Manufacturing

Materials

An effort is being made to use as few common components as possible when manufacturng prototype chassis and other hadrware for our projects. This page is a master reference to be used when selecting parts and components for a project.

Plastic

If platic body needs to be milled or turned use Acetron GP. Our supplier is Polymershapes Distribution Canada Inc. This material is much more expensive than wood but is far cheaper than aluminum. It is known for its ease of milling as well as its dimensional stability under many conditions. We have purchased 1/4” x 24” x 48” sheets (part number 55069104) and 3/4” x 24” x 48” sheets (part number 55202104). Note that the 1/4” plastic sheets are actually 0.2760” thick and the 3/4” sheets are actually 0.765” thick.

Aluminium

If Aluminium needs to be milled or turned use 6061 extruded.

Hardware

We use the same approach for hardware as we do for the materials we manufacture with - less is more.

Screws

Whenever possible please use M3 screws. M3 screws are 3mm in diameter or 0.11811 inches. Use a 1/8” drill bit to create the holes for passing through without threading and refer to this chart for details on drilling and tapping a threaded hole. You can refer to this chart to convert between metric and imperial measurements.

Prototyping

Our hardware prototyping is done in the well appointed Comfort Cottage Workshop.

Model design

We do all our CAD and CAM work in Fusion 360

CNC Controllers

Both our mill and lathe are CNC machines that use a Pathpilot controller. Fortunately there is an NC converter plugin for Fusiuon360 that is pathpiot compatable.

Machining

We do the bulk of our machining using our Tormach PCNC 770 Series 3 mill and our Tormach 15L SLANT-PRO lathe.