I’ve got a question for anyone who’s built @Rene_Jurack ’s DICE printer. I’m having a hard time sourcing metric sheet metal in the US (there’s only one place I could find, and although they’re very close to where I live, their smallest sheets are 1220x2440mm, and I have no use for that much excess, nor do I want to pay what would be a hefty price for more material than I need). I found a person selling remnant sheets that’s the proper size to cut the frame from, but it’s aluminium instead of stainless steel. My question is, can I use aluminium for the frame instead of stainless? What are the potential the downsides to doing this?
I think aluminum is OK
I used http://onlinemetals.com for my metric aluminum sheets.
I started reworking the design for imperial sheet thicknesses. But it was also to scale it it up to 200mm build volume.
I like onlinemetals.
Metric sheets? Does the thickness matter that much?
@NathanielStenzel at this point I feel like it’s mostly pride, but it matters to me greatly. 14 gauge feels slightly too thin at 1.897 mm, and 12 gauge is definitely too thick at 2.657 mm. But also, I just really don’t want to resort to using material with imperial measurements.
@_Spice no 13 gauge?
@NathanielStenzel technically 13 gauge doesn’t exist. Or atleast, I’ve never seen anything that was 13, be it sheet metal or wire.
So I’ve found that 160 thau is close enough for the aluminum, however 14 gauge stainless is about 110 microns short of 2mm. Would this make a difference?
I would think that the people building this particular machine need that trait very much so.