As mentioned in the FBB thread, There was interest in making a non-solder based connector system for the FBB plates that GHI is offering.
In that thread, I posted a pic of my first design. I have revised it slightly to the below attached image. I do need to tweak it slightly as I did not account for the edge overlap of the FBBs, so the edges of the boards do not sit flush with one another (as shown in pic #2).
This is an open hardware project, so the source files are available as well in Sketchup Format as well as STL.
Also, I plan to make a variation of these available for the custom plates I am producing, and they should also work for Nwazet, Tamiya or any other plates with the standard 5mm grid of 3.2mm holes, as long as there is not a perimeter of more than than 3.6mm (due to the overlap issue mentioned above).
For those of you who don’t have a MakerBot, I plan to offer these for sale via my website in the very near future. I need to print a few using my Kill-A-Watt to determine how much power is being used to get a price per FBBC, as well as figure out how much plastic is being used, but will post pricing info ASAP. I will likely estimate the plastic cost until I can get an accurate measurement using another Gadgeteer based project that is 3rd in line at the moment on the hardware project list.
I hadn’t thought about faceplates in specific, that’s a great idea! I had thought about off-set mounts for things like the RGB LEDs, IR Sensor and other items that aren’t “flush-mountable” on the boards. Will add that to the list of ideas and send you a couple of them for free should I come up with something.
If you have an idea of what you would like to see, shoot me an email to steve at steve presley dot net
@ origin - Just got your email - man, those are some great ideas! Will definitely send you some drawings and prototypes for your ideas!
I just reached out to the guy I’m talking to about laser cutter heads, AND ordered a small scale plastic injection molding machine… should be able to start making some of these ideas in the very near future!
I also ordered a bunch of other acrylic from inventables.com - lots of cool translucent colors and some with sparkles/mirror finishes…
I also got some of their wood veneers to try mounting them over top of acrylic to do custom faceplates for boxes like the desktop power supply [1] that @ ianlee74 built a couple of months back.
Should have some photos of the new creations online in the next two weeks or so.