x0x, enclosure mockup

Finishing the enclosure for my x0xb0x has been pushed aside for quite some while, or moreover somewhat forgotten. But things are about to change on that front! ;)

Wasting way too much time with undecisive pondering about what approach to take with the enclosure, I eventually decided to challenge myself by doing the “stepped” version and use CNC milling. If you haven’t been following my earlier x0x posts, this version has a small angled step between the keyboard and the potentiometers on the top surface of the enclosure. I’ve also decided to change the material from 2mm acrylic to 1mm aluminium, as I have some of this available and shaving off half of the height helps a lot with the slide switches. Thing is, it turned out that their shafts are just too short to remain usable with the 2mm sheet. Heck, even the 1mm sheet is problematic for one mod switch, so I still have to figure out what to do with it. The switch type I’ve used elsewhere on the synth isn’t available in the pole configuration needed for this one mod and I thus had to use a alternate type (shorter shaft).

Ok so before going for the aluminium, I figured it might not be a bad idea to practice a bit by milling some test panels.. And I do need practice with sheet bending too :).  Prior to cutting the test sheet below, I also did a “milling plastic” practice piece as well. This can be seen on the last photo at the end of this post.

First test enclosure sheet hot off the milling machine.

Good thing that I did the test sheet, as it immediately turned out I had been too happily typing away coordinates without any thoughts to how various elements are placed. Of course, rectangles (read; cutouts for USB and power connector cutouts) are defined by their X/Y lengths + lower starting corner whereas circles use diameter + center point. As I had used the latter also for placing rectangles, they were offset from the real coordinates by half of their X/Y -dimensions :)

Oops, rectangles placed according to center.

Due to the step on the top panel, I’m unable to determine the exact placement for the keyboard switch cutouts. Their placement is roughly winged “somewhat there” but I will have to adjust for exact fit when bending the small step to the final sheet.

Keyboard switches will be aligned once the final sheet is bent to shape..

Bending practice on the test enclosure sheet.

Naturally, the electronics had to be test-fitted for this photo angle as well.

Practicing the bending was a must as the press bench does take some amounts of getting used to. F.ex. there’s a slight offset between the bend line of the bench and the resulting bend on the sheet. I doubt I can pick up estimating this offset with the practice I had, but I’ll simply counter this by leaving some millimeters of “working space” here and there.

Test enclosure and the first test panel side by side.

Now then, on to the final adjustments and towards a aluminium enclosure! :)