Has anyone ever thought about making a case out of carbon fiber?
Whenever I'm not thinking about how I'm going to build a portable, I'm thinking about/building a laser pointer, and some dude on the laser forum made a how to for carbon fiber cases.
I'd link to it, since I'm sure that the same principal could be applied to portable cases, but I'm not sure if it's allowed to link to other sites (even though lasers aren't very related to portablization).

linking totally allowed. share the wealth, ya know?
as for carbon fiber, i had the idea awhile ago. it would look spectacular, but its hard to pull off, and quite expensive.

Actually its not to expensive to do carbon fiber (tho its not exactly TRUE carbon fiber but its close).

If I remember correctly for true carbon fiber you have to press and heat the epoxy to cure it (the expensive part) however you can carbon fiber stuff using normal epoxy. This is much weaker then the real stiff tho...

I recall a couple years ago when I was in the computer modding scene someone made a case out of carbon fiber by taking two sheets of carbon fiber and epoxying them to a core of balsa wood. Looked really cool and was fairly strong.

The expensive bit is the flexible middle layer called Nomex. Its this honey-comb like stuff that the epoxy fills between the two layers of carbon fiber. Its sometimes used for light-weight competition cars' bodies.

Raizer04 is going to carbon fiber over his Lazer Doodle :



posting.php?mode=quote&f=7&p=394802

Yes I remember that site now. Thanks hail.

edit// Here we go.

http://www.carbonmods.co.uk/products/re ... r-kit.aspx

Well its close to what the pro's do except that heat it up to very high temps so the epoxy is very fluid (they use a special type of epoxy so don't heat up the normal stuff!). Hmm been watching the videos on the site and they lay the carbon fiber just like normal fiberglass which makes sense. Make a sail boat shell out of that stuff would be fairly easy if it works just like fiberglass.

I guess I don't need to post the guide (but i will anyway). It's probably not all that great of a way, or strong as some other ways; he doesn't use Normex, and he does use normal epoxy.
I didn't read it in great detail, but it sounds like he gets some carbon fiber fabric and makes a mold for it to shape to. Then he puts epoxy on the fabric (he calls the mixed epoxy just resin, but whatever), puts the fabric against the mold, then vacuum seals it in a bag so that it retains it's shape while hardening.

This is the link to the thread on the forum

I helped my bro make a dashboard out of Carbon Fiber so he could mold it how he wanted, well all I can say is I will never touch that stuff again. I hate it, but that's also making a whole dashboard, a little portable case won't be that bad, but when it is a big project, it sucks balls.

Ya, it looks amazing, but it was not worth the work in my option because it isn't my dashboard, but if it was, i would do double the work for it.

I am fully experienced about the using & making of laser pointer. But, i have no idea about Carbon Fiber Case.


Please, know from other experienced people.