[Arm-netbook] CNC milling of plastic lumber instead of 3D printing?

[Ricardo Wurmus]

Heya,

this idea is too late for the current batches of laptops, but I was
wondering if it wouldn’t be easier and faster to mill the laptop plastic
parts out of recycled blocks of plastic (“plastic lumber”) with a CNC
mill.

The advantages are as follows:

* suitable plastic lumber can be made from a wider range of plastics
  than 3d printer filament

* plastic lumber can be made from readily available plastic waste.  HDPE
  from plastic bags make for cheap sturdy blocks of material.

* a CNC mill cares much less about the melting point of the work piece
  during operation than a 3d printer

* there are fewer concerns about material shrinkage at construction
  time, because the work piece isn’t partially liquid at any time of the
  CNC operations.

* processing the work piece is faster because it doesn’t require as much
  motion as printing sturdy zig zag patterns.

* even rather unsophisticated CNC mills can be used as the work piece is
  rather soft compared to the usual CNC mill work pieces such as
  aluminium.

The most obvious disadvantages are:

* there seem to be much fewer vendors of plastic lumber than there are
  vendors of high quality 3d printer filament

* this approach isn’t quite as common, so it may be harder to find
  good advice from experienced people.

What do you think?

(I’m currently in the process of setting up a plastic recycling work
space for my plastic lumber needs.)

--
Ricardo

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