Customizing Sick of Beige cases for laser cutting
From DP
Contents |
Overview
Dangerous Prototypes are moving to now standard sized PCBs for which we have designed Sick of Beige cases. These cases are simple laser cut acrylic sheets that are connected with bolts and standoffs.
In this tutorial we will cover how you can customize our Sick of Beige case files for your own projects
Download and install the SVG export plugin
Download and unzip the export SVG plugin for SketchUp in the SketchUp plugins directory.
Download the Sick of Beige template
Download the Sick of Beige SketchUp template that corespondes to the standard size board you want to design a case for.
Open your project and the template
Open the PCB design file of your project, and the SketchUp template design. This tutorial uses Cadsoft Eagle for the PCB design, as it's the tool we use for our PCBs, and we have standard size PCB library for it.
Match the PCB coordinate center on the template coordinate center
Our templates are positioned so the bottom-right corner of where the PCB is positioned inside the case (standard size PCB relative center in Eagle) is at the SU coordinate center. So if in your PCB design files the standard size PCB's relative coordinate center is at the Eagle coordinate center coordinate in Eagle will mirror in SketchUp.
Adding hole shapes for extruding parts
Find the relative center of the component in your PCB design file
First change the grid in Eagle to millimeters, in the 'View/Grid' menu option. Next right click on the component and select 'properties'. The 'Position' attribute is the coordinate center of the component relative to the Eagle's coordinate center, which should be the same for the SU. The left panel is the X-axis, while the right is the Y-axis.
Using guide lines in SketchUp
Once you have the location of the component draw guide lines in SU.
For X-axis click on the 'Tape Measure tool', then click on the any point on the 'Green' coordinate line and drag the guideline to any point on the template. now click on that point, right after you click on that point type in the numbers of the x coordinate. For example, if the location is 55mm from the coordinate center in the X axis, just type in 55 and hit enter. the guideline will be positioned at exactly 55mm.
Repeat the above for the Y-axis only now using a point on the 'RED' axis line as the starting point. Now you have guidelines pinpointing the exact location of the components center on the template.