Type of material for computer cases?

I've just started researching about 3d printing. I'm interested in making some custom cases for mini-itx size motherboards. Which type of material would suit that? Would the heat generated by the CPU/chipset cause ABS or PLA to melt or warp?

If you want heat resistance I would suggest looking into ABS. I sincerely doubt a mini-itx case with minimal cooling would get hot enough to warp either ABS or PLA but better to be safe I guess. Best thing to do is try both. Get a pound of each and try them out to see if they meet your requirements.

Thanks for the suggestion, I think I will buy both and try them out. On an unrelated note, what programs can be used to make models? Does sketchup suffice or do I need something more advanced like blender, 3dmax, autocad, etc?

I've thought about doing this.

Sketchup will work just fine. 123D Beta 9 will do the trick as well. A more advanced offering from Autodesk is Inventor Fusion. Or you try out openscad.

Good luck, and let us know how you make out!

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- akhlut

Just remember - Iterate, Iterate, Iterate!

[myhomelessmind.blogspot.com]

CAD software is very much about whatever workflow you can tollerate. I can't deal with any direct modeling software, I make too many small changes to dimensions when I iterate.
SO that pretty much leaves the parametric CAD stuff, Solidworks which is out of everyones price range unless you happen to be a student, Alibre or OpenSCAD if you can grok it.

I actually use OpenSCAD for simple stuff, but it has a lot of things I would change if I were writing it from scratch, the addition of local variables for one. I thought ImplicitCAD had some promise, it's basically OpenSCAD but with a real programming language, but it appears to be abandonware or moving so slowly it might as well be.

Quote
Polygonhell
I actually use OpenSCAD for simple stuff, but it has a lot of things I would change if I were writing it from scratch, the addition of local variables for one.

Have you taken a look at RapCAD yet?

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Bob Morrison
Wörth am Rhein, Germany
"Luke, use the source!"
BLOG - PHOTOS - Thingiverse

tinkercad is super basic, but it runs right in your web browser. You would be surprised what you can get done with it. It also lets you directly inport and edit STLs which is nice

Doesn't tinkercad require a subscription?

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- akhlut

Just remember - Iterate, Iterate, Iterate!

[myhomelessmind.blogspot.com]

Can someone answer me something about design software...

I've heard a lot about Art Of Illusion, and there are a lot of tutorials on designing stuff in it, early into my reading into reprap I heard a lot about it, yet when I finally started hanging around here and actually seeing what people use no one has mentioned it...

Was I misled that AOI is a popular program for 3d solid design? Even though it's not a Cad program, it has many many plugins that perform CAD functions...

xclusive585 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Was I misled that AOI is a popular program for 3d
> solid design? Even though it's not a Cad program,
> it has many many plugins that perform CAD
> functions...


There are a zillion programs than can make 3D models; really anything will do. If you like AOI, then by all means, use it! But if you're looking for something to learn, I'd recommend OpenSCAD or Blender. OpenSCAD because it's very popular around here and you're likely to run into a lot of .scad files, and Blender because it's a good portable skill that will serve you well elsewhere.

Pointedstick Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> xclusive585 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Was I misled that AOI is a popular program for
> 3d
> > solid design? Even though it's not a Cad
> program,
> > it has many many plugins that perform CAD
> > functions...
>
>
> There are a zillion programs than can make 3D
> models; really anything will do. If you like AOI,
> then by all means, use it! But if you're looking
> for something to learn, I'd recommend OpenSCAD or
> Blender. OpenSCAD because it's very popular around
> here and you're likely to run into a lot of .scad
> files, and Blender because it's a good portable
> skill that will serve you well elsewhere.

I've already used both Blender and OpenSCAD more than I've used AOI so far, haven't used AOI for anything since making a test cube with hole, (which I did as my very first print on a reprap, :-))
OpenSCAD I've mainly just used as a tool to view .STLs. I can do very basic Bash scripting, but OpenScad is definitely intimidating to me. I can understand the pros of scripting a model, but the concept is confusing to me even as a linux user.
Blender has GUI functionality which I like, but I haven't even began to learn how to use it to build something. But alas I have a t-800 .obj I want to cut into pieces for printing, so I will definitely be learning a little about it.

I guess since I already have blender and it is definitely powerful software, I'll keep my efforts geared towards that until there is a better full GUI CAD program released under GPL.

And for 2D I'm kinda seeing Inkscape is the open source winner there.