Laser-Cut Front Panels in Brushed Stainless Steel

Give Your Prototype the Professional Look!

Are you keen to adorn your project with a professional-looking front panel? Are you frustrated with your inability to order one panel at an affordable price? Cursing your inability to cut, punch, or drill with precision? We are pleased to announce a unique pooled front panel service in brushed 304 stainless steel, fabricated with precision laser-cutting technology at a price you never thought possible. (We can also do them in aluminum, but there are restrictions; please write to us if you must necessarily have them in aluminum.)

How it Works

We work with a laser cutting shop in Bangalore, just a few miles from where we are, that has a certain minimum order value. We accumulate your front panel drawings till we are able to meet that minimum order value. The panels are then sent for fabrication; the turnaround time is typically a few days.

Note that these are panels without legend/lettering. All you need to do is to stick on a transparent waterslide decal or use a toner transfer method to create the legend/lettering.

Standard Specifications

• Material: Brushed stainless steel 304, 1.6mm/0.063 inches thick (which has the same stiffness as 2.5mm aluminum)
• Fabrication method: high-precision laser cutting
• Panel shape: Any - billing is based on bounding rectangle
• Shape of internal cutouts: Any (but note that only vertically-cut through-holes are possible; no blind holes, bevels etc.)
• Front panel sizes: upto 5x8.4 inches (half of a 3U/84T panel); contact us for larger sizes

Pricing

Here is our introductory pricing. Note that the pricing includes any number of holes or cutouts.

• Setup fee: No setup fee!
• US$ 0.75 per square inch upto 10 square inches; US$ 0.5 per square inch thereafter
• Minimum quantity: One
• Shipping: worldwide for US$ 10 by registered airmail (trackable, about 10 business days to most places). Speedier options available

Our Guarantee

In the highly unlikely event that a front panel you receive is defective, return it to us within 7 days of receipt and we will send you a replacement in the next batch at no cost.

Pricing Examples

• 2x5 inches (10 sq inches): US$ 7.50 + shipping
• 3Ux24HP (25 sq inches): US$ 15 + shipping

What's the Catch?

None, except that we cannot process your front panel till we are upto the minimum order value required by the laser machining shop. So the more you spread the word, the more orders we get, and the quicker our turnaround time.

How to Order

At this time we work only with AutoCAD .dwg or .dxf files. If your usage is non-commercial, there is an excellent free package called ProgeCAD Smart that allows you to create drawings in these formats. (If your panel just has circular and rectangular cutouts you can even send us a hand-drawn picture and we can put it in AutoCAD format for a nominal charge.) Send your drawing as a zipped file to info at audesine dot com with the subject line "Drawing for front panel NNNN" where NNNN is a 4-character alphanumeric code of your choice that we can use to identify your order (only a-z, A-Z, 1-9; no special characters please). We'll check your drawing and let you know if everything is OK. When we have accumulated enough drawings, you'll get an invoice by email that you can use to submit payment online. The invoice will contain the batch number which includes your order. You will receive an update when that batch goes into production and, a few days later, when your finished front panel is despatched.

We will of course try to combine shipping where possible.