New project - MSFS C++ USB interface

[Demon]

The more I think about it, the more I'm leaning towards 3D printing to make the enclosures. There's a LOT of details in using liquid plastic, the one that scares the crap out of me is the vacuum chamber to degaz the liquid. I have the chamber and pumps, but I'm scared silly to have that thing fail. Liquid plastic makes a superior enclosure, but it's also labour intensive. With 3D printing, you start the job and go do something else; it literally doesn't take any of your time

The 300mm x 300mm x 300mm limitation of my Ender 3 S1 Plus was costing me a lot of time having to print at an angle. And then I fall on this puppy.

https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B0CD7S18PB/?th=1

The Anycubic Kobra 2 Max has a ridonculous 420mm x 420mm x 500mm print size that runs at 500mm/s (reviews say 300mm/s is better). Considering my printer runs at 50mm/s, that's a 6-fold increase in speed.

I'm definitely setting up an exhaust port in the basement. I could print my enclosure flat on its back with ABS, no supports, no wasted filament, and at an insane speed. I can still keep my Ender for supports jobs; like to print the smaller enclosures, brackets, light pipes, etc.

[Ioannis]

Well, OK with the self 3D printing for one or two pcs. But is it cost effective for small production?

What about using JLCPCB 3d capabilities? https://jlc3dp.com/?source=JLCPCB-top-productbar Will this be better choice regarding cost/time/quality?

Ioannis

[Demon]

I didn't even know JLCPCB offered 3D services. I have only one fear when dealing with China; it's having my idea stolen. I grew up in a time when China regularly cloned western products. I'm sure they still do today. Back then, they had to reverse engineer devices; now we're just sending them the actual prints willingly (whether it's PCBs, 3D files, etc).

I know that anyone could fabricate what I'm building; there's no rocket science involved. But still, I'm apprehensive about helping them clone my idea. I'd use multiple names for various components if I could, but that could create havoc with things like shipping, customs and such.

Out of curiosity, I got an instant quote for just the front panel for the display, $87.45.

I'm clearing more workspace for a Kobra 2 Max coming in tomorrow. I pay the printer in 6 prints, and I'm not even including shipping and brokerage fees on that, so it's probably more like 4 prints.


EDIT: One thing I'm thinking of doing, is having only the switches, encoder and pot circuits in china, and have the main USB circuit done with digikey.

[Ioannis]

Well, you do not have to tell them what you are doing. And after all, having a plastic thing printed there, what really means to them? They cannot figure what you are doing, right?

The $87.45 is for one piece?

Ioannis

[Demon]

...The $87.45 is for one piece?

Ioannis

Yup. I didn't even bother checking for quantities.

My enclosures consist of 3 parts; it's not like they will assemble it, the wrap and ship (they probably offer the service, but I'm not interested in taking them apart again once they get here.

I remember how JLCPCB likes taking humongous boxes, and that's what I expect from the 3D print service; each part wrapped separately. It's not like you can pile them up one inside the other either, I don't have a slope on the case. Shipping is gonna cost a fortune cause the final box is going to be huge.

[Demon]

Now this is a lot more reasonable than the Ender.




5 hours 35 minutes for what was gonna take nearly 2 days. This is the normal profile in Cura (from Anycubic web site), with:

• slow first layers
  0.15mm layer height
  0.4mm walls
  10% infill
  200mm/s print speed
  lightning infill pattern (90 minutes faster than default grid)

Too bad it doesn't have 2 extruders. I could print my white text directly into the black casing.

[Ioannis]

10% infill means that the compact pieces are not really compact inside?

Sorry, but I am at zero, regarding 3D printers.

Ioannis

[Demon]

Well, you do not have to tell them what you are doing. ...

Yup. I googled "jlcpcb steals design" to see if there's a history of incidents, and fell on this thread right away:

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/manufa...-risk-of-copy/


Read « Reply #19 on: July 22, 2023, 07:30:50 pm » specifically. The best thing I've learned was "don't put your company or product name on the PCB".

And I JUST finished generating all my PCBs.

I'll go through them tomorrow and take out my company name.

[Ioannis]

What I read from that thread is that you do not have to worry about stealing your idea from pcb perspective.

And I never cared about that. Maybe because I use most of the cases, MCU on board and no one knows which one or what firmware does it have.

As noted others on the thread you can just print the names and NOT the values of components on the board.

In any case who does care for my 10, 50 or even 100 pcs? And if someone manages to do what I do cheaper, then I will resale theirs and have more profit!

Ioannis

[Demon]

Just got my first order of 14 circuits, these look good:




Until you see the other end:




Oh well, live and learn. I had checked too many times, and was only seeing what I wanted to see.