I’m pretty sure that their SOP is to crash every plane load of packages into a deserted island before delivering them.
My favourite was last year when a FedEx Ground (contract) delivery driver backed his Sprinter van into a tree in my yard and busted the window in one of the rear doors. Then again, his van still looked better than my package.
Next random question for the community:
What are suggestions for outer materials?
I’m thinking something like black phenolic anti-skid plywood, but the prices and availability of that stuff has me 2nd guessing that.
Is weight a consideration? The outer layer could be the segmented spoil board.
I could go back up and look, but how large is your machine?
This is an intriguing problem. A suitcase cnc might be a fun exercise.
One of the old hard cases samsonite!!!
Here’s an old Ben Heck video about building a “suitcase 3D printer” and another for a portable CNC Router.
Of course, none of them are as slick as the LowRider!
The MPCNC traveled pretty easy. The LR is different, the 7 screws are not too bad, but I like the box to table idea because then you can have the belt holders and y rail clips integrated.
Less than 70Lbs / 32Kg.
I’ll be rebuilding one of my LR4 beta builds into this, so whatever size this ends up being.
I think so.
I’m playing with this. extrusion offers some interesting options for a transforming machine/case.
Tubing does too when thinking about options. Its nice to have access to printers and CNCs.
I need to pick a better CAD. I really want to learn FreeCAD, but something keeps holding me back.
My go-to tools are OpenSCAD or my ancient maker version of Sketchup but both have bad workflow problems for me.
Onshape works but again I just dont grok the parametric workflow there.
For reference…. My full sheet LR4’s ship out loaded at 44 lbs
Edit:
@MakerJim just went back and looked, the RMRRF 24” LR4 was 37lbs
37 lbs in the wooden shipping crate. This can work.
Yes sir. That was on the label where you sent it back to me
So image if the 4 sides of the crate laid out to make the bottom of the lr and already had the belt retainers!!
You could use dowels or dominoes for temporary joints
Or piano hinge them together. Give them mdf stiffeners which would also hold the hinges off the table you sit it on. The Y tubes would hold it flat.
I was playing with this trying to wrap my head around FreeCAD (epic fail on the FreeCAD front)
Imagine this box on the left side had a piano hinge and on the right side had Tom’s road case latches.
No accomodation here for handles or wheels, but this thing could fold open and be its’ own table.
I’m liking this idea, trying to decide on EMT or 2020 on the inside as frame stiffeners.
You can tell I’m not a Mech E. 
A Mostly Printed Suitcase CNC would be cool. MPSCNC….
Noticed you’re evaluating/investigating wheel/caster options. Here’s how far I got with those before some other shiny projects came along…
Original plan was to try designing cheap no bearing solution, but I didn’t like the friction of the earlier prototypes. So, given the time already sunk into this project, I ended up adding a bunch of bearings per wheel. There’s definitely more elegant efficient designs than this, I’m hoping someone will tell me/us. Haven’t load/stress tested the wheels, yet.
If these might work for your project, or could be useful for you to remix, I can dig out the model files, they’re probably backed up onto one of my many unshared incomplete project GitHub repos.
I really liked those, the idea of a set of casters I made myself is appealing for a portable maker travel case. Maybe milled aluminum bent over a form for the caster body along with the usual suite of bearings and other vitamins.
I’m still spinning ideas on how to make a quick-deploy traveling LR4 in the luggage box as noted above. Also started thinking about your portable MP3DP, I’d love to have one that folds up as a companion to a travelling LR4.
Does anyone have a design for an EMT tube connector?
I’ve also wondered to myself whether it would be better to splice a tube in half (puts a small discontinuity in the middle of the axis) versus smaller splices in either end (which is beyond the range of cut; minimal disruption to the center range of motion).
I was thinking of you have a double thicknesss strut in the middle, split the X tubes and added inline connectors for the x-max steppers and endstops it would be quite straight forward to make the whole assembly 2 parts for transport.
Would you lose something in rigidity, probably. But for a demo does that really matter?
Besides if you had a plug inside the split tubes at the join and that double thickness brace you might not lose a lot of rigidity at all, something to test.
Maybe, but in playing with this, I think I might be able to make a stiffener out of whatever I use for the Y rail clips and whatever I do for “wings” to ride the rail and non-rail on…
I’m thinking I can have legs using nested EMT tubing and these:
I also just discovered tap-in inserts for EMT:
https://www.amazon.com/Double-Flanged-Threaded-Insert-Threads/dp/B0CKLXQJ4S/132-6599159-9176757?pd_rd_w=0ieLl&content-id=amzn1.sym.2cd14f8d-eb5c-4042-b934-4a05eafd2874&pf_rd_p=2cd14f8d-eb5c-4042-b934-4a05eafd2874&pf_rd_r=VPP1118CXHWM7M5G5549&pd_rd_wg=pYk9A&pd_rd_r=0707e508-e458-4cf6-8b2a-445344c4dd00&pd_rd_i=B0CKLXQJ4S&th=1
