In this post, I will provide some details about the case I built for the ACE wearable device
Building the case
Compared to the first version I made, I created a new case from a plastic bottle. The resulting case has many qualities
- it's free
- it's made of recycled materials
- it's light and surprisingly rigid
- it's easy to build (event if it needs some practice to get good results)
All in all, this technique it's a good solution to make parts with simple shapes quickly and at no cost
Bill of materials
The bill of materials for this build is
- a board of plywood cut at the same width of the better. Length is not important
- two round bars of aluminum. Again, length is not important here
- a 66 centiliter plastic bottle
- tape
Required tools are
- scissors
- cutter
- hot air gun
Forming the case
Use same adhesive tape to keep the round bars close the the plywood board
Cut the top and the bottom of the plastic bottle place the plywood board with the aluminum bars inside the bottle
With the hot air gun, heat the plastic bottle until it shrink and takes the shape of the plywood board. I need some more practice here, because the temperature at which the thermoplastic material can be modeled is very closed to the temperature where the material becomes liquid. Of course, the material should not be melted down, or the final result will not be so good to look
This is the final result. As I said, I need more practice for a perfect result...
Remove the aluminum bars and then the plywood board. With the scissors and the cutter, finish the edges
The batteries and the boards fits perfectly in the case. I wrapped batteries with some tape to be absolutely sure they will not slide out
Finally, I added two clips made of harmonic steel to join the two halves and make a sort of clothespin you can pin to your trousers
And this is the final result
Update
After some practice results are getting better
The trick is to use to be patient and move the hot air flow away for a couple of seconds when the plastic starts shrinking
| Previous post | Source code | Next post |
|---|---|---|
| ACE - Blog #6 - Adding simplicity | https://github.com/ambrogio-galbusera/ace2.git | ACE - Blog #8 - Offloading computation to LSM6DS3 |
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