On 30/04/17 04:19, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton wrote:
my only concern is: it's gonna take forever to machine 2000 parts, which would need to be turned twice through 90 degrees *in different axes*. that's a 5-axis CNC which starts to get a bit hairy.
The other direction to avoid 5-axis would be to make strips about 3' long of appropriate size. Mill the dados with a suitable blade in a mini table saw. A router in table can handle the corners for radius consistency, or P150 in a palm sander (as I used) can do pretty nicely. Then do a sanding of that in 3' lengths.
At this point, except for one lip by the dado that's nearly a rabbet the entire thing becomes a 3-axis flat milling operation. Even that one I suspect could be done by letting the cutter making the rabbet run just past the PCB slot and tolerating the radius.
From there, the possibilities diverge. One option is to cut to corner
length pieces and find a way to secure them in a CNC. This has the advantage of a consistent point to index from, but requires filling a jig with lots of little pieces.
The other option is to load lengths into the CNC, but then either you need the CNC to cut it for accuracy or you have to reference a CNC edge for later cutting, because a small error in length will accumulate fast and throw the whole thing out of tolerance.
Last would be drilling the holes. I just made a mark, lined several up in the vise on my milling machine, and ran across them. Not hard, but it would get a little tedious for 2000.
Looking another way, if the extrusion mold mentioned isn't so difficult, then you just need about 170' of custom extrusion to load into the CNC or cut into pieces and load.
Tor
l.