HELP! Need some small panels, or a vaccuum form machine

Status
This old topic is closed. If you want to reopen this topic, contact a moderator using the "Report Post" button.
I need someone with a vacuum form machine to help me out, and I'll pay them for their time and materials!

I have a project that needs a couple of small plastic recessed panels. they will be installed on some small inexpensive acoustic travel guitars. They need to have a lip so that they can be placed into neatly cut rectangles in flat sections of the instrument, and overlap the wood slightly for a neat installation. One needs to be pretty small, about 2" square (or a rectangle would do) and just 1/2" deep, and will be for a small control panel. The other needs to be significantly larger, about 3-1/2 long, 2" wide, and 1" deep, and will become the basis of a battery compartment.

I know what you're thinking... speaker terminal panels. Well this is a typical sad situation where any part of a project you don't nail down from day 1 will come back to bite you. Just looking at all the little recessed plastic panels I've seen on the backs of speaker cabinets over a lifetime made me think little recessed plastic panels were a common off the shelf thing. At worst I figured I might have to compromise my size requirements a little to use something off the shelf. Boy was I sadly mistaken! there's nothing! Especially not in the smaller size!

So then I thought I'd find a small plastic fab company to make me a short run with a vacuum form machine at a reasonable price, if I made the molds and offered to do all the trimming. Another big let-down! "Sure we'll do it... that will be $1000 set up charge, and "only" $5 for each piece. (Really??? %^^$$%$%^ !!!!!!!!!!! )

If all else failed, I figured I'd build my own vacuum form machine and make the parts. But sadly I've just lost my job, and making a good vacuum form machine has just become cost prohibitive, and there is going to be some significant initial waste. If I have to I will, but first I'm going to ask for help! Here I have an electronic project/product ready, PC boards cut, everything worked out, on my way to a sale-ready product, except for these plastic parts.

So maybe someone could help me. I can provide a sketch to better explain what I'm up to, I can make all the models, and will pay for time and materials. I'm just sure someone who already has a vacuum form machine and a little experience can probably do better job than my first attempts, and hopefully do so for a lot less than I've been quoted.

Thanks for any assist.
 
D0938K | Martin Sound Products
1444 | Martin Sound Products

A couple possibles

parts Express used to have a selection:
Terminal Plates & Cups in the Speaker Components Department at Parts Express | 321


But how many of these do you need? COnsider using commercial products - there are already guitars with these things, just buy the parts from a guitar company.

Stew-mac has some generic battery boxes for guitar body:

STEWMAC.COM : Battery Box

They even have a router template for them:
STEWMAC.COM : Battery Box Template

There are other places too, like Allparts. I would get on the phone and TALK to those companies and ask what they might have. I am not sure the best search words, but they may have entire little acoustic preamp/control assemblies cheaper than you can buy custom parts.

My friends at Elderly Instruments are a world class bunchy, call them and ask if they might have something available. Not probably on the shelf, but some entry level guitar they could source a pile of control cups for. Can't hurt.
 
Thanks, but trust me... I've been looking for almost 2 years now. If there was anything out there I could use, I wouldn't be asking for help in fabrication. I've looked at everything All Electronics, MCM, Parts Express, 1/2 dozen more companies have.

How many, I need a dozen right now. If the product takes off, I'll probably buy a couple of hundred next. The battery compartments you mentioned are much too small for the battery pack i need (that was the larger one I described). As far as the existing parts, hey if you have a contact or two at this Elderly instruments place, please let me know. ;-)
 
Oh, I awas not aware of any in-guitar circuits that need more than a 9v battery. Are you putting a small speaker in there or something?

Over a hundred people work at Elderly, I am not sure who best to send you to, but they don't bite, they'll find someone who will know what you are talking about. Whether they actaually can come up with something, who knows.

Likewise the people at Stewart MacDonald, talk to them. Just because it isn't in the catalog doesn't mean no one knows about it.


and I don't know what your project is about, but a different approach might be the way a Strat is made. perhaps just a large-ish access hole in the rear, covered with what amounts to a pick guard, on which stuff is mounted. Your jack plate type stuff is recessed, but do the controls need to be recessed?
 
No, you nailed it... I'm building a speaker and amp into the travel guitar. I'm intending to offer it on-line as both a complete item, or a DIY project and provide PC boards and such. The larger panel will be to house a Li-Po pack, to power the internal class D amplifier. It was a very complicated project actually! Not only finding the best speaker match for the body tone, but then I had to design a multi pole level sensitive filter to exactly cancel the body resonance to get an impressive volume output, without it sounding "thin" or "toy-ish". You can read some about the ongoing project on the totally incomplete website I started, at Welcome to Elfin Technologies. My prototype sounds awesome, and these panels are the last step. I expect to have them ready for sale by summer, at the latest.

I'm pretty much resigned to building a vacuum form machine to make the parts just as I need them. But it really took me by such surprise that such a simple shape, and such a common idea as a recessed panel, would not already be available in 1000 shapes and sizes. I've written to both Stewart and Elderly today. Perhaps they'll have some ideas. But of course with a vacuum form machine, I won't have to make any compromises.

I'm equally surprised that on a DIY board, i didn't hear from more people who owned vacuum forming machines, willing to run me off a few pieces to get me started. It always seems I end up doing every part of a project myself. When I have a vacuum form machine, I'll definitely offer short runs for people at low cost.
 
Status
This old topic is closed. If you want to reopen this topic, contact a moderator using the "Report Post" button.