Formulor / Ponoko

So, I decided to order a small size prototype for my LED-Clock project from Formulor, the german partner of Ponoko. Small because it’s pretty expensive. My design on a 18x18cm and 3mm thick sheet of acrylic glass with shipping and tax costs about 52 Euro. The shipping alone makes a whopping 6.70 Euro… for a plastic sheet a little bigger than a  CD case…

Nevertheless, I sent in my design… and got an answer from the service that some things are wrong or not well designed. The mail was pretty informative and also a boost in confidence. They won’t just produce your design even tho there could be errors – nice! Fixing the errors was quick, but I had to increase some sizes for the “not well designed” part… this took quite some time. The idea is to engrave a shape into a front- and backplane and create inlays for those engravings so that it becomes 3-layered. For the (cut-)sizes I used some kerf-tables from ponoko and applied the sizes to the engraving sizes.

As it turns out the engravings came out smaller than designed (inlay thickness: 4.8mm designed, ~4.7mm as measured). Which is strange because the kerf for the cuttings was pretty exact (inlay thickness: 5.0mm designed, 4.83 to 4.88 measured). Even with some scratching of the residue at the edges of the engravings the inlays barely fit. This was a little disappointing because I thought if it turns out not to be precise the inlays will still fit as I adjusted the measurements a little in “my favour”.

Beside this, the outcome of the plates is pretty awesome. I would never come close to such a result crafting it by hand.

Formulor LED Clock - After unpacking

Formulor LED Clock - Washed plates

What I did after unpacking was cleaning it from the dusty residue that stuck to it by washing it in warm water – I used a toothbrush for this task .

Looks great, even with the protecting sheet still stuck on one side.