Front Panel Designer  Tip of the month
 
 
Welcome to our first newsletter. As promised, this monthly newsletter will have lots of great information and practical tips for our software Front Panel Designer. Let's start with one of our most popular questions:

How can I reduce the cost of my panels?

One major factor that determines the cost of a front panel is the duration of the milling time. Milling time is affected by the following factors: the design complexity, the panel thickness, and the strength of the cutting tools. While you select design and thickness, Front Panel Designer will default to the largest tool available for the dimensions entered. We will talk about the relationship between tool size and inside corner radii of milled objects, so that you can better control this parameter as well and thereby save on milling time.

Simple changes in tool size can have a significant impact on machining time, which consequently affects pricing. A smaller tool will require more passes at a lower cutting speed than a larger tool. In simplified terms, if you use a larger corner radius, you can use a bigger tool, which will result in faster machining. For example, machining a 1" by 1" cutout makes a difference of more than 30% in price by selecting a .06" instead of .0197" radius. The savings are even more drastic when it comes to cavities, because the entire surface area is being milled, whereas a cutout is just milling the outside perimeter.

When designing a panel with cavities or cutouts the corner radius you choose will determine the tool size. Front Panel Designer supports you here and you don't need to worry about picking the right tool. When it comes to pricing, however, you want to use the largest radii your design will allow.

What should you do if you are unable to pick a larger tool, because you need to have the corner radius as small as possible and you can't tolerate larger radii for assembly reasons? You can still meet your assembly requirements and achieve a reduction in cost, by using a "zero corner radius". This means that we machine square corners with small intrusions into the surrounding edges (see screenshot below).


The default tool setting for a zero corner radius is the 1mm cutting tool, our smallest tool for cutouts and cavities, to give you the smallest intrusion as possible. However, this can be changed, if you can tolerate larger intrusions, by un-checking "automatic selection", which allows the tool selection box to become available. You are now able to choose a larger tool diameter, which increases the corner radius / size of the intrusions, and thus reduces the cost of the cutout.



Front Panel Designer allows you to check cost at any time during your design process. It offers a detailed price breakdown that provides pricing for every single object. To access this feature simply press the $ icon on the tool bar.		      
Project of the month:
Transcription Turntable
(Courtesy of Jeff Davison)
 
 
Every month we will feature a project, which we milled based on a customer's design. We will select these projects because of their unique uses of Front Panel Designer, their nifty application of milled material, and/or because we think they are interesting.
 
This month we picked a nicely done rebuild of a Garrad 401 transcription turntable. Our contribution to this project was the milling of the 3 mm anodized aluminum top plate and some machine parts (see photos below).
 
 
The 8 mm thick parts are good examples what can be realized with importing dxf files in Front Panel Designer.
 
 

Look at some more examples

 

Contact Us
Phone (206) 768-0602
info@frontpanelexpress.com

   
                 

Front Panel Express - 5959 Corson Avenue South, Suite I - Seattle, WA 98108
Phone (206) 768-0602 - Fax (206) 768-0679 - www.frontpanelexpress.com - info@frontpanelexpress.com