Jay West wrote:
http://www.ezwind.net/jwest/photo.JPG
I have one of these bin/toolOrganizers (made by rubbermaid) on my
home techbench. Love it. I'm looking for another one for my work
techbench, but apparently they are no longer made and my google&
ebay searches have come up dry. Anyone have one, or know where I can
get another one of these? What's a fair bounty for finding one - $20?
It
should be possible to create a 3D model and print one out of ABS,
but if you print one on a commercial 3D printer (or via a service
bureau), it will cost a lot more than $20. Should be possible to do it
for <$20 with a Reprap, Makerbot, etc.
I inquired as to printing with plastic,
and a friend who does it
regularly here producting parts like mouse housings, and housings for
our movie viewer product said that the juice that is used in the
printers costs around $1000 / litre. As such unless you really want
something badly, try some other way than 3D printing. I have not seen
what the low end printers that you referred to can do for finish,
tolarance, etc, but the process they are using makes parts which are
about as clean as the finish on a plastic mouse (which we have a custom
version of).
I wanted to "print" an Apollo DSKY, and use another asset they have
here, which is flex circuits, and do a USB version to attach to the
simulator you can run on your PC. The Linux version of the simulator
didn't look to be very difficult to interface to, and I figured a real
panel version would be pretty cool. The frame and backing is way
cheaper with aluminum, very expensive with his printer service.
Jim