Electronics finished, but where to start with fabrication?

Thread Starter

sirchuck

Joined Feb 14, 2016
150
I bought an RC car, a Raspberry Pi, and a solar panel. How do you go about attaching everything?

Duct tape, Hot glue? What do you pros do?

So far I'm thinking about cutting up some dowl rod wood into four equal length parts, then hot glue the bottom parts to the car, and the top parts to the bottom of the solar panel, then maybe the Rasberry pi zero ductaped to the underside of the solar panel.

It's really hard to figure out where you even buy stuff for this sort of crafting. I'd like to affix a platform to the top of the car basically so I can sit my solar panel above it in a stable way, and maybe protect the Pi from the rain.

What sort of stable stuff is there for a platform? I was thinking like plastic, but I would need something sturdy that won't just bend.

Pro stuff always looks so good, but this is going to look awful I'm sure.
Thanks for getting me pointed in the right direction.
 
Last edited:

Ya’akov

Joined Jan 27, 2019
9,068
You might want to look into companies that laser cut acrylic and metals from your CAD designs, as well as 3D printing options. They are relatively affordable and make very nice results.
 

jpanhalt

Joined Jan 18, 2008
11,087
Use three short pieces of dowel and hot glue. The"sir" may imply somewhere in the UK. If that is erroneous, Michael's, Home Deport, Lowes, eBay, McMaster-Carr, Amazon...gosh the list of places is very long.
 

Thread Starter

sirchuck

Joined Feb 14, 2016
150
I think I need to fix this question a bit. I know the internet will provide the things I need, I just don't know what sort of place you ask for things like this.

Electronic parts? Arts and Crafts? Dogs and Whistles? Trinkets & Tots? Home Improvement? heh just not sure where kind of store the pros go shopping for boxes for their creations and such.

Is there a materials list you browse when deciding what to use? I don't know the difference between plastic and acrylic sheets for example.

I like the idea of finding a 3d part printer shop, that may be the best solution, then it will be a sturdy product I can just plug my parts into.

I will research CAD and try to figure out how to use it, let's hope it's free. :D If I remember it used to be like $20,000 USD 30 years ago.
 

pmd34

Joined Feb 22, 2014
527
Hi sirchuck, I buy most of my bits on aliexpress... they have electronics enclosures, sheet plastic, and all sorts of random stuff you can adapt!

This place: https://www.directplastics.co.uk/ has a good selection of plastics and tells you a lot about them. "POM" or acetal is great to work with, but not easy to glue. Plexi glass is cheap and you can bond it with just acetone. But plastic is not so easy to cut and make pretty unless you have a milling machine (or laser cutter!).

For CAD there is actually some open source stuff out there, its a little harder to get into than the pro stuff, but its free and worth every penny!
 

BR-549

Joined Sep 22, 2013
4,928
Do you have friends that have RC units? Do any of them home brew? How and where did you get your interest in it?

There might be local clubs and there are always online specialty RC forums. You want to talk to the ones that build your type of RC unit.
 

Thread Starter

sirchuck

Joined Feb 14, 2016
150
Hi sirchuck, I buy most of my bits on aliexpress... they have electronics enclosures, sheet plastic, and all sorts of random stuff you can adapt!

This place: https://www.directplastics.co.uk/ has a good selection of plastics and tells you a lot about them. "POM" or acetal is great to work with, but not easy to glue. Plexi glass is cheap and you can bond it with just acetone. But plastic is not so easy to cut and make pretty unless you have a milling machine (or laser cutter!).

For CAD there is actually some open source stuff out there, its a little harder to get into than the pro stuff, but its free and worth every penny!

Oh ok, thanks for giving some detail on some material types, that will help a lot too. :) Yea, I have Blender and it turns out that can export STL files which is what the company Yaakov needs, so I think it will work.
 

Thread Starter

sirchuck

Joined Feb 14, 2016
150
Do you have friends that have RC units? Do any of them home brew? How and where did you get your interest in it?

There might be local clubs and there are always online specialty RC forums. You want to talk to the ones that build your type of RC unit.
Hah, what is this "friends" you speak of? No, my friends are the type that sit and play video games after a long day of eating chips. I've always had a major interest in tech, but I settled on programming long ago and am just now getting into the mechanical side of things.

I like the idea that there may be a local club of people who do electronics? Is that what you're talking about? I'll try to look into that, having others around that know things in the physical world would be helpful I'm sure. Since I began, 100% of my resource has been the internet and friendly helpful folks like yourselves in forums willing to donate some time.
 

BR-549

Joined Sep 22, 2013
4,928
There are all kinds of "groups". Is your RC a land, air or sea RC? What flavor processor?

Do you know how many ways there is to cook and eat shrimp? That's the way it is with electronic and programming groups.

I haven't looked in years,but there use to be "yahoo groups". There are other "user group sites".

Tons of robot construction and programming sites. Tons of processor sites. Drone sites.....it goes on and on.
 
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