Case construction machine?????

[Anxbox36o]

Okay, I'm sorry If this is a stupid question. I'm new so please don't flame me. So I'm building the Xbox laptop with the help of Engadget's guide on how to and I'm having trouble making the case. They posted a file with the drawings in part two, but I don't know what to do with it. Is their like a robot or a machine that can digital cut out the
case from the file like a printer can with a word document? Also, how would I change the design to my liking? Thanks again. ANY response would be big help.

[OMGpedobear]

im no robot, but i am a case construction machine. Seriously though, you need access to a cnc machine, or you build it by hand. As you clearly have no experience with cnc machines , 3d software or anything of the sort, i would suggest making it by hand. You will need basic hand tools and a lot of time, its not easy making it by hand. If you are of school age, see if you school DT department has a cnc machine, if so then suck up to the DT teacher until you can use it (worked just great for me ).

I don't want to put you off, and sorry if i have jumped to the wrong conclusions, but building and xbox 360 laptop is no where near as easy as the engadget article makes it looks. From the brief post you posted i doubt you can do it. Either start with something less challenging like ps1 or ps2 portable/ laptop or just hang around the forum for ages, take a few consoles and screens apart and make sure you are sure you are capable of it. DO NOT start buying parts on a whim as many have done, make sure you are 100% sure you can fund the whole project (they get very very expensive) and that you can either get someone to help you or do it all yourself.

If you want anything worth having then its a lot more complicated than xbox + screen + box = happy hacker. If i havent put you off yet, then have a look at xbox 360 laptop builds being done now (mine being one of them).

But seriously, case construction machine?

[Anxbox36o]

Okay, how about this. I know a few places that have CNC machines, and they say they accept files created from Adobe Illustrator. Could I give it to them and could they work their magic and make it real? Also, what do I tell them if they ask for the dimensions? Is it in the file itself or do I tell them the ones Ben posted on his final xbox?

[collinE]

Unless you know somebody with a CNC machine, it's going to cost you. Between five hundred to a thousand if you go to a professional shop and do one like Ben's first three.

They do like pdf files from Illustrator and even better if you can get it into a dxf file. Label the dimensions on the design and you'll have less trouble when dealing with somebody. Find a machinist who'll at least look at your design for free and tell you if it's usable. If you can take a 100% usable design to a shop that doesn't need to be modified at all, then all you'd be paying for is material and machine time, which makes the price much easier to swallow.

Also, nobody I talked to had even heard of Komatex, which is the compressed foam material Ben uses. You can buy it separately and give it to the machinist to use. Otherwise, they'll want to use hard plastics which makes it cost a lot more.