I got bored...

[laserlackey]

And drilled 950 4-40 holes into a piece of mic6.

Anybody else want one?

[swamidog]

Is it tapped?

And drilled 950 4-40 holes into a piece of mic6.

Anybody else want one?

[dsli_jon]

Portable Air Hockey?

j

[laserlackey]

Is it tapped?

It'll be finished in about a half hour. Hopefully the tap didn't break! Will post pictures of the result soon

[Photonbeam]

Oh I thought you meant by hand. wow- Is that piece as thick as it looks?

[laserlackey]

And 3 hours later, here's the result:

[The_Doctor]

How much would you sell that for?

[laserlackey]

If I did it again, I wouldn't make the holes a half inch deep. I think .300" would be sufficient, and would probably cut a good 45 minutes off the machining time. I also wouldn't use 1.5" mic6, probably 1", which would save even more cash.

I've probably got about $150 in it all together if I charged my shop rate plus material. This happened to be scrap and I ran it after hours instead of paying one of my employees to do it.

What does something like this even go for? And do the holes really need to be on .250" centers?

[edit] here's another picture. Can't wait to make some photons on it. I'm debating sending it out for black anodize to improve safety in the lab.

[swamidog]

they go for a lot..

search for "SA optical breadboard" on newport or thorlabs.

If I did it again, I wouldn't make the holes a half inch deep. I think .300" would be sufficient, and would probably cut a good 45 minutes off the machining time. I also wouldn't use 1.5" mic6, probably 1", which would save even more cash.

I've probably got about $150 in it all together if I charged my shop rate plus material. This happened to be scrap and I ran it after hours instead of paying one of my employees to do it.

What does something like this even go for? And do the holes really need to be on .250" centers?

[edit] here's another picture. Can't wait to make some photons on it. I'm debating sending it out for black anodize to improve safety in the lab.

[laserlackey]

they go for a lot..

search for "SA optical breadboard" on newport or thorlabs.

This plate is roughly 8x11 and 1.5" thick, and I did 6.5x9.5" worth of 4-40 holes on .25" centers. Mic6 is .005"/ft. flatness without needing any grinding, which is what Thor is selling (although they claim theirs has been ground, but grinding aluminum is a PITA because it's actually quite 'gummy' on a grinding wheel). Add anodizing for $30 or so. I could reasonably do these for $180 out of 1" mic6 with optical black anodizing.