[Arm-netbook] Proposal: screen and touchpad

[Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton]

On Sun, Apr 18, 2010 at 5:06 PM, Baybal Ni <nikulinpi at gmail.com> wrote:
> So for now, we can utilise only this very case design? At least we
> would be free to stuff it full.
> But may I know how much would be to design and produce a new case in PRC?

somewhere between $60,000 and $100,000.  take a look on the
openpandora forums for the discussions, there.

 the way that cases are designed is that you "heat-shrink" the
plastic.  as it shrinks, the resultant stresses cause twisting.  the
ultimate aim is, that when the plastic has fully shrunk and is cold,
the push-and-pull of all those stresses results in "flat" surfaces.

thus, in order to "counteract" those stresses which may result in
"curves", you have to create a mould which curves in the OPPOSITE
direction from the stresses!  sometimes, this is not possible to work
out, and you have to put in place "barriers" - divisions - which hold
back the forces at work.

 in the inside of the CT-PC89E you can see clearly that they have
access to some veery good case designers, because there aren't any
such "barriers".

so, you can see: you simply have to repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat,
repeat, repeat until you get the "reverse" mould correct, and it is
time-consuming and immensely costly.

thus, you arrive - regardless of country - at a figure somewhere
between $60,000 and $100,000 for a case design.

bottom line: it's _just_ not as trivial as it seems.

poured acrylic however, and 3D printing, is a different matter, but
the costs of each unit are higher.

l.