[GTA04] When is the next and more powerful openmoko releasing

Al Johnson openmoko at mazikeen.demon.co.uk
Mon Oct 25 11:44:20 CEST 2010


On Saturday 23 October 2010, David Arnold wrote:
> On 23/10/2010, at 9:40 AM, Al Johnson wrote:
> > high quality design doesn't have to be expensive to manufacture. I
> > suspect something attractive could be made in low volume at a reasonable
> > price using laser cut plastics. I'll try to ask the local cutters about
> > their precision and cut thickness in different materials.
> 
> This is a totally un-researched idea, but ...
> 
> What about a machined aluminium case?

Nice faraday cage you've got there ;-) Machined plastic would be easier for RF 
and almost as nice.

> I would guess that rental of a CNC machine would not cost too much, and
> perhaps we could make an arrangement with a technical college or even
> commercial firm to use their equipment in otherwise idle times?

Unless you know someone in the firm who's willing to do something unofficial 
you'd have to be very lucky to get a company to do that. Either they'll be set 
up for big runs, in which case they won't want to change anything, or they'll 
be charging people for small runs exactly like ours. CNC has non-trivial setup 
costs for programming the tool path, and possibly for tooling to hold the 
workpiece.

A college is much more likely to accept the idea, and might even accept case 
design as a student project.



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