I’ve opted for more industrial design of the Arduino/Gshield control box for X-carve.
The aluminum enclosure was obtained from Jaycar Electronics; 24V cooler, rubber grommets, stands and other shiny hardware – from Altronics (both are the electronic chains down under in Oz land). The total material cost was around AUD 40 (US 30).
The wire holes in the back plate and the screw mounts in the bottom half-shell are done by hand, so the machine could be connected and set to work.
The nice ventilation holes in the top half-shell were pre-drilled with 3 mm bit by the X-Carve and then manually expanded to 6 mm and countersank with the regular electric drill (I didn’t read the FAQ before the purchase and forgot to order 6 mm collet!). Not quite mentally ready to do the large-scale aluminum milling, I told the machine to make 42 3-mm holes for the cooler mount, then got to a manual work with a jeweler’s chisel and file to make the big opening.
Two holes in the front plate (USB and power jack) were milled with 3 mm Dremel bit and then the round angles were “squared” manually with a diamond file.
That’s how the final product looks like with the cover off:
Now have to figure out the limit switches, which still don’t quite work for me.