Sheet metal enclosures... inspire me

Brett said:
Are you printing a press brake or a forest?

How are you liking that Bambu?
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I’m loving it! You just press a button and it goes! I’ve already printed with carbon fiber since it has the enclosure and that was fun. I made some Batman gadgets…cause why not?🤣 It’s a 1-2-3 job to change out the extruder gears and hot end to hardened steel versions and you’re good to go! Highly recommended, especially if you’re using it as a tool (drill templates, knob rockets, etc).
 
It seems easy. But the deeper the pressing, the more problems. Material deformation, strength, separation after pressing, etc.. but - nothing ventured, nothing gained :)
 
Yeah my biggest worries are the die deformation and separation but like you said we’ll see! I’ve seen videos where sheet metal forming is very much possible with 3d printed parts.
 
temol said:
Nice piece of steel. Did you already test the large radius fingertips?
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I haven’t tested it yet. I still need to make a little clamp bracket for it. I messed up the tap size so the clamps from the other fingers won’t fit.

The print came out just a little oversized, so I had to mill it down a little to fit the brake.

I also got my m3 clinch nuts from aliexpress yesterday! I need to test those out too at some point. What size hole are you making for those?

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temol said:
M3 thread. I have two sizes - for 1mm thick material and 1.4mm thick. I tested both on 1.5mm thick aluminium and I prefer 1mm type. There's no or very little distortion of the material after pressing in the nut. With 1.4mm there's a slight bow. At least on the test scrap. Maybe hole was to close to the edge od the alu sheet(5-6mm)...
I bought them here (aliexpress)
I have no idea if anything outside the US is a good source these days
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Try McMaster-Carr in the US, always a quality supplier.
Clearly they are going to be more expensive than aliexpress (at least, before tariffs, that is...), but they ship very quickly.
Just grepping on 'self-clinching nuts' turns up these options.
www.mcmaster.com

McMaster-Carr

McMaster-Carr is the complete source for your plant with over 595,000 products. 98% of products ordered ship from stock and deliver same or next day.
www.mcmaster.com www.mcmaster.com

@temol - really nice enclosures you're making, really first class work!
 
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Just as a random option, here's a quasi-similar M3 option from McMaster-Carr, $3.16 for 25, zinc-plated steel.
Minimum sheet thickness = 0.8mm
www.mcmaster.com

McMaster-Carr

McMaster-Carr is the complete source for your plant with over 595,000 products. 98% of products ordered ship from stock and deliver same or next day.
www.mcmaster.com www.mcmaster.com
in stock, too.
 
darwin999 said:
View attachment 94226
Just as a random option, here's a quasi-similar M3 option from McMaster-Carr, $3.16 for 25, zinc-plated steel.
Minimum sheet thickness = 0.8mm
www.mcmaster.com

McMaster-Carr

McMaster-Carr is the complete source for your plant with over 595,000 products. 98% of products ordered ship from stock and deliver same or next day.
www.mcmaster.com www.mcmaster.com
in stock, too.
Click to expand...
McMaster is usually my go-to for that kinda stuff. Those clinch nuts were actually the first thing I ever bought from Ali express.

99 cents for 50 and free shipping! Except for the 900 emails they sent me it was a pretty good deal.
 
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Ok so I just tried stamping aluminum…a couple things here…the die only had an opening of 1.2mm and the aluminum was 1.6mm so it wasn’t gonna work from the start but I wanted to try it.

Surprisingly the dies outlasted the aluminum! It just tore it. There are a few dings in the dies from the aluminum crinkling up but in terms of do ability I think I can actually make this work! At least do a very small production run! I’m going to make a few adjustments and try again!
 
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