Whilst building the Thunderbolt Monitor I wanted to provide a clean, professional look to the LCD cutout. It is hard to cut out a very clean hole with crisp corners and straight edges from aluminium without a lot of patience and a lot of filing.

I designed a plastic bezel and glass using CAD and had a number professionally laser cut. The plastic is high gloss black.

I am now making them available for purchase with all the spacers and mounting screws you require to mount a 4×20 LCD to a panel.

The bezel and glass come with the plastic protective covering still attached to prevent scratches until you’re ready to install it.

They cost £4 with £1 delivery to the UK and £3 delivery to the rest of the world and are now available in the shop.

I ran a third batch of the monitor and most are now gone. The are just a few still available in the shop. If you want one, please be quick.

I had a small run of aluminium boxes machined at the same time as the ABS enclosures.  I really like them but they cost quite a bit more to produce.

The second batch of monitor kits have completely sold out again. Please email me to express interest and I will then be able to gauge when/if another production run is required.

Glad there are so many out in the field now.

After having received the prototype enclosure back and being so pleased with it I thought getting the rest cut would be a doddle.  This didn’t turn out to be the case.  Having had the order accepted from the laser cutters and shipping off the boxes I later had them returned with an apology that they were unable to cut them after attempts to reproduce them had failed.  They found that the ABS was melting and catching fire and releasing Cyanide gas.

That meant that milling was the only viable option.  I found a number of local suppliers and contacted them for quotes.  Most claimed that no job was too small…  Out of the 5 I contacted, one returned my email.  The quoted a crazy price per box (£20) and couldn’t start for 6 weeks.  Somehow I don’t think they wanted the work.

I then found a number of suppliers on eBay.  I contacted a number of them and got 2 responses.  Having had a friendly telephone conversation with one of them and a reasonable quote I have shipped the boxes off to get machined.  They are very confident that they can machine them to the quality I require.

I am getting a large number of enquiries to purchase these and most people want more than one.  I’ll keep you all posted on progress.  I’m looking forward to getting this project finished once and for all.

I will also now be supplying a 40a fuse with each kit as the main input fuse.

I have received the prototype Powerpole Distribution enclosure back from the laser cutters and am very pleased with the results so I’ve sent off a large number of lids to be cut.

I’m hoping the I will receive them back in about a week or so at which point I will add the kit to the store. There will be fully built versions available too for those of you without the tools or time.

I’ve recently received interest in just the bare PCBs which is an interesting idea. I have invested heavily in the PCBs, components, Powerpoles and the laser cut enclosure which I need to clear first. I’ve had to purchase in bulk to make the kits cheap. If once the first batch of kits sell out there is enough interest in bare boards I may get another run of boards produced. The question I have is why you want to go to all the effort of sourcing the parts and cutting your own boxes?

I’ve learnt quite a bit whilst taking the idea and turning it into reality. I also now have contacts to make beautiful PCBs in large quantities and a local(ish) company with laser cutting skills. I’ve even had to learn basic CAD skills to ensure the job got done properly. All of the skills gained will come in handy for the next project for which I am already writing code and collecting components for a prototype. More on that soon.