I am a senior at Lawrence Tech right now. GHI is the epitome of what I aspire to be. I’ll have to send an E-mail. I am just down the road here, and it would be an absolute honor to see the “shop.”
Frustrating that LTU is a C++ school. Absolutely zero exposure to C#.
Do I just send an E-mail to info@ devonboard.com to get an order in?
Sure, we can show you how the boards are manufactured. It is always fun when we show off our (very expensive) toys… aka production line.
Yep, that’s the whole idea of these designs and GHI’s FBBs, as well as the custom boards GHI will have a service for.
I definitely recommend you take Gus up on his offer 
Yep - I’m having an issue with the system I’m using for the shopping cart, so getting it online is behind schedule. an email works just fine.
-Steve
Thanks Steve. I look forward to having one or twenty of these.
I had an old UHMW sheet in the basement, I just screwed everything to that, but It looks terrible.
Gus: Can I E-mail you or you E-mail me at canders@ ltu.edu to arrange? It’s finals this week, so I’ll have the next three weeks or so free to really get into the GHI products I’ve purchased to date. Would be neat to see from where they came and from what brains they were imagined.
Emailed
@ stevepresley - Does the uni-mount design include both a top & bottom or are those ordered separately?
I haven’t finalized the design on a top and bottom plate yet, but they would be separate. Other than the perimeter mounting holes, they would be fully engravable though, including the option to put logos/graphics on them.
I did some font carving tests over the weekend to figure out the smallest “legible” fonts and will be posting pics shortly, after I tweak them in paint.net.
-Steve
I want your image #1 & #2 just the way they are. No need to change the design. What’s the cost for those?
$4 each. Let me double check on which colors I have in which thicknesses in stock. Will post an update this evening - just got the issue with the theme on the shopping cart resolved. Should have it up tonight as well.
just the other day i was looking for something exactly like this!.
do you think you could ship to new zealand? if so - how much would i be looking at for that?
ill have to measure my stuff, but id be looking at at least a couple of the larger boards & a couple of the samller ones.
.
Absolutely. I calculated post to Australia the other day, it’s the same for NZ - $17 US for most boards (up to 4lbs), $48 or $61 for up to 20lbs, depending on dimensions. FedEx/UPS are in the hundreds of dollars for even small packages, so USPS is the way to go for these items.
awesome stuff.
ill wait for the site, as i need to make sure im getting the right one. i really only want it to hold my monsters/learning projects together at the moment, i think i want the unigrid.
Good work dude, this is exactly what i need.
Thanks!
I just finished doing inventory of all the acrylic, ABS, HDPE and UHMW I have. 47 different permutations of colors, thicknesses and finishes on hand.
I need to do some Excel magic to get the costs set for some of the specialty colors/finishes like Mirrored, Metallic and Glittered. Once I have that done, probably half an hour or so, will start adding them into the site.
Forgot that I didn’t upload the engraving pics.
I used a .1mm 15degree engraving bit. The side labeled “Carve” was done using a Carve path in the program I use - VCarve Pro by Vectric (http://www.vectric.com/WebSite/Vectric/vcp/vcp_index.htm) . The Carve path will take an object (letter in this case) and carve either around the perimeter of the object, or cut out the face of the entire letter… The side labeled “Profile” was done by using a profiling path, but having it ride on the letters. Using PostScript fonts, there is more of a difference, but the font I am using is called a Single Line font, so the letters themselves are only 1 line thick. I do have a few 3 line fonts as well, but for the smaller letters on the UniMount, I used the 1L font.
In these boards, I used the same depth of 1mm. Some of the smaller fonts at the bottom didn’t work out well (as you can see) as there was too much bleed over between the letters. I’m going to try different carving depths of the 2.5, 3.0 and 3.5mm fonts to see if I can get them to “clean up” a bit.
Also, I used acrylic paint to inlay the letters. Since the acrylic comes with a paper mask to protect it in shipment and when being milled, I just used a brush to paint over the carved letters and the mask, then peeled it off after the paint dried a bit. I should have let it sit longer as there were a few spots that didn’t come off cleanly and made their way onto other areas. Also, I cut the groove around the edge too close to the edge, so the mask was all gone when I removed the board from the base material. I didn’t try to fill that in.
Anyhow, here’s what the yellow translucent 4.75mm board looks like with painted letters (same board as the other pic with the grid and the DevOnBoard.com kick out at the bottom with the fine line Sharpie method)
Oh, forgot to mention, in the pics, you can see the upper right hand side of the board (in pic 2) didn’t get the paint adhered as much - was because the carving didn’t go as deep. I’ve been using a foam backer board underneath the acrylic so that the mill doesn’t cut through the base plate on my CNC machine. Because the foam is not as rigid as the plastic, it can be slightly higher/lower on some areas and does give slightly when pressure from the mill cutter is put on the piece.
I have been working on a cutting plate system that will let me use another piece of acrylic or HDPE as the backer board instead of the foam, so it won’t warp or flex due to the temperature changes or when material is removed as much as the foam will. Also, now I’m having to use double sided carpet tape to hold the acrylic to the foam so it won’t move. I’m switching to a method of finger clamps, hard edge guides on two sides and metal dowels to align the boards in the various stages of machining so that I can do the engraving before or after the hole/edge milling and have more accurate repeatable results.
When I need to remove a piece from the cutting table and remount it, I’m currently accurate to around .005" with my current method, that should go down to .002" or .001" with this new method. I have been machining pieces from start to stop, changing the bits multiple times per piece before moving onto the next in order to keep the tolerance to within .001" to .0005". By using a plate system, I can create many more pieces at once, then go back and do the engraving or turn a UniMount into a UniGrid without having to have one variation of each board in stock. I can just take a UniMount, put it back on the mill and zap the rest of the grid holes into it and get it out the door.
Nice work Steve.
Only 47 permutations - pfft is that all 
Looking good, Steve. Is the site going to be up soon or should I go ahead and email you my order?
About that backer board… MDF would probably be the perfect material. You could use your CNC to drill a grid of holes in it and use “dogs” and wedges to hold everything in place snuggly and it would be very quick & easy to setup & adjust.
I thought about MDF as well, but after a bit of research I’m going to use plastic - the TiN coating on the mills seems to wear off quicker when used on wood, so that’s the reasoning.
It’s taking a bit longer than anticipated to get the permutations loaded into the site, so here’s a synopsis of what I have on-hand at the moment:
Material Opacity Color Shade Finish Thickness (in) Thickness (mm) Product Code $$
Acrylic Opaque Copper on Black Brushed Metallic 0.06 1.524 25259-03
ABS Opaque Black 0.0625 1.5875 8586K352
Acrylic Transparent Clear 0.11 2.794 8560K191
Acrylic Opaque Black Glossy 0.118 2.9972 24112-01
Acrylic Opaque Black on Bright White 2 color 0.118 2.9972 25255-01 *2
Acrylic Transparent Blue Light Glossy 0.118 2.9972 24134-01
Acrylic Transparent Blue Powder Matte non-glare 0.118 2.9972 25082-02 *3
Acrylic Opaque Blue Glossy 0.118 2.9972 24131-01
Acrylic Translucent Blue Glossy 0.118 2.9972 24152-01
Acrylic Opaque Blue Mirrored 0.118 2.9972 24173-01 *2
Acrylic Opaque Blue on Bright White 2 color 0.118 2.9972 25256-02 *5
Acrylic Transparent Bronze Dark Glossy 0.118 2.9972 24137-01
Acrylic Transparent Bronze Light Glossy 0.118 2.9972 24166-01
Acrylic Transparent Bronze Medium Glossy 0.118 2.9972 24167-01
Acrylic Opaque Bronze Mirrored 0.118 2.9972 24177-01 *2
Acrylic Opaque Brown Glossy 0.118 2.9972 24157-01
Acrylic Opaque Grey Slate Mirrored 0.118 2.9972 24175-01 *2
Acrylic Transparent Grey Glossy 0.118 2.9972 24136-01
Acrylic Translucent Ivory Glossy 0.118 2.9972 24154-01
Acrylic Transparent Pink Radiant 0.118 2.9972 25053-01 *2
Acrylic Opaque Red Mirrored 0.118 2.9972 24174-01 *2
Acrylic Opaque Silver Mirrored 0.118 2.9972 24135-01 *2
Acrylic Translucent Yellow Citrus Matte non-glare 0.118 2.9972 25088-02 *3
ABS Opaque Black 0.125 3.175 8586K362 *2
Acrylic Translucent Amber Flourescent 0.125 3.175 85635K462
Acrylic Translucent Blue Flourescent 0.125 3.175 85635K463
Acrylic Transparent Clear 0.125 3.175 8560K239
Acrylic Translucent Green Flourescent 0.125 3.175 85635K464
Acrylic Translucent Red Flourescent 0.125 3.175 85635K465
UHMW Opaque Black 0.125 3.175 4296A31 *2
Acrylic Translucent Chartreuse Glitter 0.135 3.429 25236-02 *4
Acrylic Translucent Garnett Glitter 0.135 3.429 25233-02 *4
Acrylic Translucent Salmon Glitter 0.135 3.429 25232-02 *4
Acrylic Translucent Silver Glitter 0.135 3.429 25234-02 *4
Acrylic Translucent Black 0.1875 4.7625 8505K813
Acrylic Translucent Blue 0.1875 4.7625 8505K819
Acrylic Translucent Blue 0.1875 4.7625 8505K919
Acrylic Translucent Bronze 0.1875 4.7625 8505K811
Acrylic Transparent Clear 0.1875 4.7625 8560K211
Acrylic Translucent Green 0.1875 4.7625 8505K815
Acrylic Translucent Grey 0.1875 4.7625 8505K812
Acrylic Translucent Red 0.1875 4.7625 8505K816
Acrylic Translucent White 0.1875 4.7625 8505K817
Acrylic Translucent Yellow 0.1875 4.7625 8505K818
HDPE Opaque Black 0.25 6.35 9785T112
UHMW Opaque Black 0.25 6.35 4296A32 *3
HDPE Opaque Black 0.5 12.7 9785T212 *2
I went through the stock and for some of the “exotic” colors/materials I didn’t originally quote, I’ve added a cost multiplier due to the material cost. Multiply the cost of the piece by the *x in the far right column. For anything without a *x, it’s the same cost as in the initial post.
edit: fixed the formatting
@ stevepresley - You have some great offers but we really want to see a summary of all options gathered/cooked in one place, a single page on your website or at least a PDF that we can download. Whatever is easier for you but I think this is very important for all your customers… I am one of them 