| MiniBox Chassis |
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| Custom Chassis HowTo - Support by Mailing List |
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| Custom Chassis HowTo - Outsourced AutoCAD design |
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| Custom Chassis HowTo - Mini-ITX Market Niche |
- It is cheaper to build your own custom chassis if and only if :
- none of the existing chassis suits your requirements
- you know exactly what your chassis should support
- you will need to build a MINIMUM of 50 - 100 chassis
- if you do NOT build at least 50 chassis,
you will lose thousands of $$$
- you have a good set of autocad drawings and you know sheet metal and its technology
- if you have an inhouse pcb designer, autocad designer, component purchasing dept
- luckily, these one-time tasks can be outsourced
- The odds of successful product is improved when :
- always plan ahead - double the estimated time you will need
- always build prototypes
- always document every single change under revision control
- we can buy "good" metal chassis and other parts cheaper
- we all can buy in bulk
- we all can than customize it for our front panels
- we all can provide our expertise into the project
- work directly with a sheet metal shop instead of 3rd parties and "anybody" that can draw lines and circles
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| Custom Chassis HowTo - Additional Support Crew |
- You will need an expensive caliper to do detailed measurements
( 0.001" accuracy )
- You will need to know the difference between an Amada and BridgePort and various tools and punchs
- You will need to know the your raw material options
- you will need to know your 16-flavors of steel, aluminum, etc
- you will need to know hardware: screws, nuts, studs, pems
- You will need some autocad editing tools
- You will need some PCB editing tools
- You will need some Parts Dept
- You will need a good sheet metal shop
- use your local phone book
- it's extremely expensive to ship metal chassis around the country/world
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