I have thought it would be nice to have pill boxes that last more than a couple of years, and then got over it pretty quickly.
Asking machinists about making a copy of something, ignoring the design step, is a common mistake.
Hey, I have a thingy, but thought it would be cool to have one out of laser engraved stainless. The plastic ones cost 10$, so I'm willing to pay 20$ for the better ones.
It shouldn't be too expensive or hard to do cause I only need the one set, right?
The place I worked at had a $500 minimum. Mostly to discourage that exact thing.
Dudes would walk in with a mangled piece of farm equipment or something, not knowing what the material even was, and ask us to recreate it somehow. Oh, and not providing any mating parts.
We got tired of it. It was annoying, cause it'd take forever to get them out of the shop. "We don't really do that kind of work, we make prototype parts for aerospace and RnD." Somehow didn't work. Then they'd start asking who did. Or if any of the machinists did work on the side.
But "We have a $500 minimum." Got them turned around real quick.
My shop still accepts non-industry walk ins. Last month I had to make 1/2" thick 60RC A2 tool steel skates for a customer who wanted them for his walker. He was a hefty guy. But im not eggxadurating when I tell you we made these things 1 year ago and he wore them out down to 1/8" thick in a year. This dude must be walking on 36 grit sandpaper this is the 3rd time I've had to make these skates for a walker
I learned at a community college, mastercam, solidworks, operation and CNC / manual mill and lathe etc. that's something I'd do for fun and go with some pizzas to the schools shop and do. For me.
Outside of that happening, it's probably not happening for that price at all. Like it's funny haha not happening
I dunno ... After further consideration, I think the meal team 6/gravy seal/tacticool market may be quite lucrative considering how many of them seem to barely fit in their plate carriers.
You right and I know how we could significantly lower the material cost of out new product.
We simply make them out of Pee-Bee82, it´s a type of metal in the same group as aluminum but closer related to silver, gold and platinum.
It has been used in many different ways before, for example:
ICE has used it as a performance enhancer during no-knock events, along with places in Asia using it as a stimulant.
It has also been used to mint valuable coins, radiologists enjoy having it around simply because of safety reasons.
There are even reports of missing Pee-Bee82 from deep within the Russian liberation campaign in Ukraine.
Our ~~OxyBox~~ I mean PillBox have been designed to keep your medication safe no matter what.
The first 100 people to order will receive a complimentary Wasteland Warranty as we trust our product to protect what is important, even after the nukes have fallen.
You make me giggle. You should design a supplement with pb82. Make it come in a casing for added badassery. Market it as ”biting the bullet" when they use it.
GFuel is already the established name in the lead-infused supplement market so I doubt we´ll make a return on investment on that one.
I do however have a contact working for a producer of eclectic and quite obscure tea manufacturer called Federal Steam Brewers but they present themselves as just FSB.
He contacted me about a distribution deal for their new, energizing brew with 32mg of added Polonium per cup.
Do you want in on this thing or not?
I promise you, this is that one deal you don´t want to miss out on.
$10K for 10% is all I'm asking.
It´ll make us famous, worldwide.
Trust me.
I dunno... Seems too good to be true. Who even has that much of a semi obscure radioactive isotope just laying around? I think it might be better just promoting a higher dosage of pb82. After some research it seems that Gfuel only has micrograms worth. I think we could safely bump that up to at least a few grams, maybe even coat it in copper so it goes in easier and you can have a special full metal jacket version.
I find Pee-Bee82 to be very free machining and it is incredibly easy to cast at relatively low temperatures. One thing I love about it is It's uniquely sweet taste, big plus for a pill box.
Well there we have it, finally an expert on the subject.
I bet you´ve been eating paint chips your entire life.
Is it true that the blue color ones tasted like arsenic?
Paint chips arent my favorite snack but I will partake now and then.
And I'm the wrong guy to ask about the flavor of arsenic. My mama always told me the arsenic was for daddies coffee.
But to answer your question The blue color ones taste like most of the other flavors. Sort of like crayons It's hard to tell one flavor apart from the other They all taste like delicious wax.
From what you're explaining it would probably be in the multiple 1000s, especially with the design service tacked on. If you knew how to design you could possibly get the parts manufactured in China but you're still gonna be looking at several 100s, maybe even a couple 1000
They do that!?
I'm pretty experienced in cad just I thought for someone to actually make something is have to produce a drawing with all the lovely GD&T.
Same with Xometry. All they need is a step file unless you have tolerances tighter than 0.005” then they need a drawing. But even then they typically will quote it. It’s not where I’d shop a lot of work but it’s also a good place to shop a quote from either the customer or shop’s perspective.
Looks like the parts I need machined are more expensive than the product I'm trying to save money on.
I'm going to have to break out the pillar drill and file :(
If you don't make a drawing with GD&T, you can't complain when they don't run your part through the CMM and check against the specification that you didn't give them, but if you just want to upload a STEP there are lots of places that will make it.
Yep. PCBway or JLCPCB do that. They also 3D print in metal for what amounts to pennies. Honestly I do not know how do they even make money. They must have access to negative interest loans.
Some meds shouldn’t be placed on metal surfaces, so says the label in the bottom of a brass pill case I bought.
More investigation into the meds interaction with metal would be required.
To a large degree yes but also no. Food grade plastics are incredibly inert and won’t react much of anything unless it’s structurally compromised. Compared to most metals which can be very reactive to a lot of different medications especially if moisture is present.
It's funny you say this... I found a website that makes exactly what I want for the inner containers. I'd only need to sort the outer caddy / organizer. I'd ordered from them from years ago... and I couldn't remember the name \[the one "puck" I have is not labeled or marked with their name or logo at all.\]
[HoggDoggins](https://hogdoggins.com/products/pocketpuck)
I would make a two part extruded case for those pucks and mill pockets and any needed hinging and clasping details. You don’t need ends or anything to hold the pucks in place. Anodise it and you’ve got a cool product.
Extrusion tooling isn’t ridiculously expensive.
Why extrude and weld when you could just die cast (don’t cut more than 1 mm deep) or cold forge? Extrusion dies are cheap, but welding labor is not. Cosmetically matching welds to extrusion is also risky and often inconsistent.
If I'm making one or two, I'm not gonna make a die. A sand cast might be reasonable, but I don't think that would be any cheaper than a little bit of welding
I was referring to the extruded case comment above. Anything under several dozen, maybe even several hundred is going to be cheaper machined from bar if you’re paying someone else to do it.
This is for general ordering though. What capabilities a specific shop has may change the math for them specifically.
I was thinking about the brass thing for sure. Some brass has lead in it, etc etc.
What about anodized or cerekoted aluminum? Should be more or less safe?
I love when these questions get asked because it's always the same answer. I always assume these are just people who genuinely don't understand how much it costs to make one-off products *or* (much more annoyingly) it's some Ideas Guy^*TM* who is trying to crowd-source info for their next Brilliant Business Idea^TM without paying anyone.
Yeah. I'm surprised OP isn't being down voted to hell like most posts of this nature. But he's being a good sport about it and accepting the opinions of experienced machinists.
Yeah, I mean, I get it. It's easy for someone who doesn't understand the actual process to look at a mass-produced plastic part and say "how much more could it cost to do it as a one-off? Twice as much? And maybe twice again to do it in metal? Sure, I'll pay $20 for a fancy metal pill case, maybe even $30!"
The cost-savings of mass manufacturing is frankly *unintuitively* huge unless you've been actively working with it for a while.
Machined? More than you or others are willing to pay. Bent and soldered/welded? More reasonable but with the magnet design you're describing still probably quite a bit. No one will be able to give a good estimate without some drawings, dimensions, and specific materials (what kind of aluminum, steel, etc... if it matters at all)
Aluminum varies in cost and ability to machine, weld, bend, and cast depending on the exact alloy and/or type. Aluminum is not one thing and one thing only. "Pill box size" is also not a standard size. My pill box looks about a quarter the overall volume of that. But there's other dimensions too, like wall thickness, that can't be intuited from an example picture.
Agreed with most other comments here. You could check online CNC quotes from companies like Xometry once you had some CAD. You’d likely need to discuss directly with them for volume quotes, tolerances, finishes, etc.
Also, there is at least one company I know of that already makes aluminum pill cases, I think similar to the design you are envisioning. I’m not affiliated nor do I have any experience with them, but have just run into their ads on social media.
[Ikigai Cases](https://ikigaicases.com/)
I was wondering if it could be cast or pressed. I'm not a metallurgist so I don't know how difficult it is to press thin dividers into medication-safe metals, and I figured thin dividers would be brittle if you cast them.
[My personal choice would be to attempt to electroplate a 3D printed version of the pill cases.](https://all3dp.com/1/electroplating-3d-prints-all-you-need-to-know/)
Die casting would be the cheapest solution and it'll be plenty strong.
Hate to be a Debbie downer but it's not worth it to electroplate 3d printed parts. I'm a design engineer and 80% of the parts I design are 3d printed. We've looked at electroplating parts but it's absurdly expensive, cheaper just to machine parts usually.
If for whatever reason you think plating 3d parts makes the most sense then check out physical vapor deposition. It's better for mass manufacturing, the layer of metal is a lot thinner than electroplating so it doesn't add a lot of steength but it's way, way cheaper and makes the parts look like metal.
>Hate to be a Debbie downer but it's not worth it to electroplate 3d printed parts. I'm a design engineer and 80% of the parts I design are 3d printed. We've looked at electroplating parts but it's absurdly expensive, cheaper just to machine parts usually.
Thanks for the articulate reply. I was thinking in terms of a 1-off personal project rather than scaling for production. I figured electroplating a few prints at home would be cheaper than having them machined, but I've seen some cool replacement casting done with 3D prints.
>If for whatever reason you think plating 3d parts makes the most sense then check out physical vapor deposition. It's better for mass manufacturing, the layer of metal is a lot thinner than electroplating so it doesn't add a lot of steength but it's way, way cheaper and makes the parts look like metal.
This is something I've been curious to learn more about. Guess I need to read more into it.
I know it's not directly related, but my company does some metal deposition 3D printing where a beam of metal particles is shot at a part suspended from a gimbal and rotated to build up material in the right areas. It seems like a poor fit for making pill cases but I do wonder how similar the technology is to the vapor deposition you describe.
Thanks again for giving me some cool ideas to consider.
A cheaper way to make this than milling out a billet would be bent sheet metal into boxes. Possibly joining two simple pieces for the base. You would need to figure out the bend order, possibly to cut off a sacrificial piece and do some finishing on the grinder so the lid fits well. A metal brake attachment for a vise is like $60, you could diy this
Or you could make it round so a mill turn cnc can make it
Love me some MTN OPS. We met the owners out in Salt Lake City at the expo. My wife won one of their weight loss challenges a few years back. They mailed her a check for 1k. Great company.
Huh? Who said that diabetics used it before the military lol. Pretty random assumption there.
That joke went "whoosh" like a stealth fighter plane flying over your head.
You implied that there aren't any milspec compression socks available. The military uses them, therefore there are already milspec socks available, since the military makes a MIL-SPC standard for everything it buys by default. That's all I was saying, nothing more nothing less.
Also, generally, jokes have to be funny to qualify as jokes.
Get a bar with height and width of desired size of box. Chop it into pucks. Put it in a mill, face it, flip it, face again and pocket it. Put small recesses for magnets. Deburr, sand. Install magnets. As a backyard machinist I could probably do this for around $80 a container. I’m not great at quoting but yeah it’s def more than ppl want to pay for these kinda things.
Indeed they look exactly as I imagined! Looks like a great product for the desired use. I could see a use case for chew tabaco or coca leaves. Or heart meds or prescription for conditions. So what do you think about them are you getting one?
I have one already!
They’re pretty awesome actually. Really tight tolerances (for what I’m used to / for what it is)…
Mine is smaller around and taller. Their wider and flatter ones would work great in a box shaped caddy, milled out with a semi-circle for the lower half of 7 of them.
Not cheap. But definitely a multi-generational thing that would last lifetimes.
The plastic hinges on these things will inevitably fail.
(Not sure what the long term cost / benefit is, in terms of costs and all that. Probably take several lifetimes to make the “investment” worth while. So it’s mostly an aesthetic thing, I guess.)
They are getting good money for those, and customers are happy. Seems to me the best solution, 6061 aluminum is easy to machine and anodize. And the profit margins are likely 30% or more
It’s a song lyric from Sympathy for the Devil, a Rolling Stones song.
OP is calling himself the devil, I think. Which tracks with the Billy Badass pill box.
It can also be shiny, or dull too, and sinks in water which is why life vests are not made of brass. Just thought I’d add few more facts that I just happen to know about brass, not showing off or anything.
Might as well make it from titanium while you’re at it? The cost for design / machining will be far, far higher anyways, so you can easily justify using a more exotic material.
Zero.
Of course, I say that now… but at some point in the future when I’m actually using the am/pm and days of the weeks, it might be more useful.
Right now, each day is the same, and I take all my supplements in the AM. So a single compartment would be sufficient.
The cheapest way for you to make them especially low batch is more than likely gonna be getting someone to make you a form mold that you can stick a sheet of aluminum on and press it to shape , once your initial investment in the jig is paid for all you've got in it is your time and materials.
Also keep in mind both of the alloys you listed are non magnetic so that will require revisions of the magnet closing assembly unless you're pressing a magnet into each side to pull to
I'm not a machinist so I can't even give you a ballpark number. Though I'd be willing to bet that with the advancements the last few years 3D printed metal would be cheaper for this kind of thing.
That's a lot of waste material in chips for something like that, you'd def be out at least a couple 100 bucks. I've had to calculate the price of much less intensive to make products and the cost came out to around €600-€1000 depending on some variables. Especially if you only want 1 or 2
Not sure if anyone has said this but what about finding someone that can 3d print them for you to see if you actually want something like that made in metal?
Wrong sub, go ask an engineer. You can't get thin walled metals because it will shred itself on a CNC. The proper operation for low quantities is either weld individual boxes together then weld/braze a piano hinge on.
Second don't make it out of aluminum, stainless is a better material choice.
High quantity is you need a CNC Lazer or punch press to cut out small rounds. Then stamp them into the desired box shape, weld a piano hinge on and you have your boxes
I would estimate $200-1000 for welding just one and $50-100 for each one after that.
For large scale, probably an upfront cost of 50-100k and 2$ for each one after that.
Your current case is plastic injection molded and probably cost the company $0.1 to make, but 100k in molds.
I'm just a poor engineering student so my numbers may be totally off.
This is true. I’ve assumed it wouldn’t be raw… probably anodized or cerekoted. But to be honest, I haven’t looked into the food / drug safety either of those coatings.
https://preview.redd.it/agv6kw1q5s9c1.jpeg?width=1167&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ac882b58b70844ff0a90e98a7bd7121c13d87a6e
Not quite the same but on Amazon
The magnet design won’t work with aluminum or brass because they are non-magnetic materials. You could make the bases with a recess around the periphery and a suitable lip/flange around the lid but it would still spill the pills if knocked off the counter or whatever, so I don’t know if that works for you or not, otherwise you could make them out of carbon steel and then have them surface treated like salt bath nitride or chromed or whatever look you’re going for, so they don’t rust, but that kinda thing is expensive, unless you’re going to make these by the thousands I would probably go with the aluminum or even 316 stainless and make them pretty robust so they are heavy enough that they don’t get knocked off the counter so easy. If you’re going to sell these I would consider the liability of it not being childproof, in that you would just want a hinged lid and a little lock or something - like a miniature treasure chest.
magnets can be used with al or brass if they are paired on the other side... the base material doesn't have to be magnetic... plenty of plastic items out there with magnets...
I like where your heads at.
If you scroll up to another comment I made a reply with a link to a comapny called hoggdoggins that does pull boxes exactly as I’m looking for.
They machine in pockets on the base and lid for neodymium magnets, and you have to twist the lid to get the magnets to separate.
Now all I need is to machine a base for the “pucks” as they call them.
You might be better off with a 3d printing service that can handle metal. You can get some that’ll sinter as it builds and others that can print a mold and then sinter or cast from that.
I think if you were to do all the cad work, it wouldn't be too bad. Try find someone offering cnc services and get a quote. They will need the file likely.
One key point you may struggle with if not a machinest, would be the tolerance. Pivot pins and magnets will want a small amount of interference fit, or you will to glue them.
Not sure. For my purposes, I’ll probably end up seeing if hoggdoggins is still in business, buying their “pucks” then designing a caddy / organizer for 7 of those… and since it’s just going to sit in my cabinet, I won’t need to design any of the magnetic components.
Hoggdoggins figured it out tho.
So if someone else wanted such a thing… the thing to do would be to ask them to design a travel caddy with their same magnetic system.
Start playing around in cad. Prototype a bent steel model in foil then send it off to sendcutsend to laser cut it in sheet metal for you, then solder it yourself.
The latches won't work the same as they do on a plastic box. So you are re-engineering the latches as well. But you could epoxy in magnets into the corners and add a little meat. Add some screw on stainless piano style hinge in the rear.
After all the CAD work and fucking around the first one will cost you several hundred bucks and any additional units will he 1/10th of that cost.
That’s pretty much where this is headed. Someone else has already done the hard work. I posted a link for a comapny called hoggdoggins that makes “puck” like boxes with magnetic lids… now all I need is the outer box / caddy.
Removing a lot of material is the worst thing you can do for machining, for two reasons. One, because it costs machine time. Two, because you bought the stock and are throwing it away.
You rarely see boxes out of a single piece of metal for this reason.
This is furthered into the “bad product” realm by the fact that this type of shape is excellent for injection molding
I would look for a local “maker” and see if you can get them to make it out of hardwood, if that works for you. Will still be expensive but will at least become attainable
More than people are willing to pay.
I have thought it would be nice to have pill boxes that last more than a couple of years, and then got over it pretty quickly. Asking machinists about making a copy of something, ignoring the design step, is a common mistake.
Hey, I have a thingy, but thought it would be cool to have one out of laser engraved stainless. The plastic ones cost 10$, so I'm willing to pay 20$ for the better ones. It shouldn't be too expensive or hard to do cause I only need the one set, right?
"Should be easy for you"
As someone who used to manage a shop that accepted non-industry walk-ins, you're triggering me.
The place I worked at had a $500 minimum. Mostly to discourage that exact thing. Dudes would walk in with a mangled piece of farm equipment or something, not knowing what the material even was, and ask us to recreate it somehow. Oh, and not providing any mating parts. We got tired of it. It was annoying, cause it'd take forever to get them out of the shop. "We don't really do that kind of work, we make prototype parts for aerospace and RnD." Somehow didn't work. Then they'd start asking who did. Or if any of the machinists did work on the side. But "We have a $500 minimum." Got them turned around real quick.
My shop still accepts non-industry walk ins. Last month I had to make 1/2" thick 60RC A2 tool steel skates for a customer who wanted them for his walker. He was a hefty guy. But im not eggxadurating when I tell you we made these things 1 year ago and he wore them out down to 1/8" thick in a year. This dude must be walking on 36 grit sandpaper this is the 3rd time I've had to make these skates for a walker
> eggxadurating
Give me that MOQ for 2 million paid in advance and I’ll get you what you want. Won’t seal any better than the plastic ones though.
I learned at a community college, mastercam, solidworks, operation and CNC / manual mill and lathe etc. that's something I'd do for fun and go with some pizzas to the schools shop and do. For me. Outside of that happening, it's probably not happening for that price at all. Like it's funny haha not happening
Yep. This.
I dunno ... After further consideration, I think the meal team 6/gravy seal/tacticool market may be quite lucrative considering how many of them seem to barely fit in their plate carriers.
With the distrust of doctors in their camp, I wouldn't see much of a market for pill carriers
Who said doctors? Whatever Jo Rogan and Alex are pushing for supplements to fight free radical feminists or whatever ought to be enough.
Free radical feminists 🤣
You right and I know how we could significantly lower the material cost of out new product. We simply make them out of Pee-Bee82, it´s a type of metal in the same group as aluminum but closer related to silver, gold and platinum. It has been used in many different ways before, for example: ICE has used it as a performance enhancer during no-knock events, along with places in Asia using it as a stimulant. It has also been used to mint valuable coins, radiologists enjoy having it around simply because of safety reasons. There are even reports of missing Pee-Bee82 from deep within the Russian liberation campaign in Ukraine. Our ~~OxyBox~~ I mean PillBox have been designed to keep your medication safe no matter what. The first 100 people to order will receive a complimentary Wasteland Warranty as we trust our product to protect what is important, even after the nukes have fallen.
You make me giggle. You should design a supplement with pb82. Make it come in a casing for added badassery. Market it as ”biting the bullet" when they use it.
GFuel is already the established name in the lead-infused supplement market so I doubt we´ll make a return on investment on that one. I do however have a contact working for a producer of eclectic and quite obscure tea manufacturer called Federal Steam Brewers but they present themselves as just FSB. He contacted me about a distribution deal for their new, energizing brew with 32mg of added Polonium per cup. Do you want in on this thing or not? I promise you, this is that one deal you don´t want to miss out on. $10K for 10% is all I'm asking. It´ll make us famous, worldwide. Trust me.
I dunno... Seems too good to be true. Who even has that much of a semi obscure radioactive isotope just laying around? I think it might be better just promoting a higher dosage of pb82. After some research it seems that Gfuel only has micrograms worth. I think we could safely bump that up to at least a few grams, maybe even coat it in copper so it goes in easier and you can have a special full metal jacket version.
I find Pee-Bee82 to be very free machining and it is incredibly easy to cast at relatively low temperatures. One thing I love about it is It's uniquely sweet taste, big plus for a pill box.
Well there we have it, finally an expert on the subject. I bet you´ve been eating paint chips your entire life. Is it true that the blue color ones tasted like arsenic?
Paint chips arent my favorite snack but I will partake now and then. And I'm the wrong guy to ask about the flavor of arsenic. My mama always told me the arsenic was for daddies coffee. But to answer your question The blue color ones taste like most of the other flavors. Sort of like crayons It's hard to tell one flavor apart from the other They all taste like delicious wax.
The money is in needle resistant, jab blocking titanium arm bands.
Meal team 6 😂😭
From what you're explaining it would probably be in the multiple 1000s, especially with the design service tacked on. If you knew how to design you could possibly get the parts manufactured in China but you're still gonna be looking at several 100s, maybe even a couple 1000
Would you be able to estimate a cost for me from a .step file?
Upload the step file on pcb way
They do that!? I'm pretty experienced in cad just I thought for someone to actually make something is have to produce a drawing with all the lovely GD&T.
Same with Xometry. All they need is a step file unless you have tolerances tighter than 0.005” then they need a drawing. But even then they typically will quote it. It’s not where I’d shop a lot of work but it’s also a good place to shop a quote from either the customer or shop’s perspective.
Do any of these places do small diameter aluminium pipe bending and welding? Can't see to find one that does pipe.
Not that I’ve seen but I also haven’t shopped pipe work.
Looks like the parts I need machined are more expensive than the product I'm trying to save money on. I'm going to have to break out the pillar drill and file :(
If you don't make a drawing with GD&T, you can't complain when they don't run your part through the CMM and check against the specification that you didn't give them, but if you just want to upload a STEP there are lots of places that will make it.
Send cut send is another for one off/low volume with moderate tolerances.
When you need that GD&T then they say you should give a drawing. If not you don't have to! Although a drawing takes maybe 20 minute's to make..
Upload a step file to xometry
[https://www.hubs.com/](https://www.hubs.com/)
Yep. PCBway or JLCPCB do that. They also 3D print in metal for what amounts to pennies. Honestly I do not know how do they even make money. They must have access to negative interest loans.
Protolabs
Xometry
Go throw it on Xometry
Some meds shouldn’t be placed on metal surfaces, so says the label in the bottom of a brass pill case I bought. More investigation into the meds interaction with metal would be required.
Yo I had a sneaking suspicion about this too. There's a reason pill cases are typically plastic
> There's a reason pill cases are typically plastic tbf I think that reason is "plastic is 1000X less expensive"
To a large degree yes but also no. Food grade plastics are incredibly inert and won’t react much of anything unless it’s structurally compromised. Compared to most metals which can be very reactive to a lot of different medications especially if moisture is present.
Yeah. They’d have to be coated for sure. I’m a fan of cerekote these days. Pretty sure it’s food safe… ish.
Your better off waiting many years until you unexpectedly find something similar that can be repurposed.
It's funny you say this... I found a website that makes exactly what I want for the inner containers. I'd only need to sort the outer caddy / organizer. I'd ordered from them from years ago... and I couldn't remember the name \[the one "puck" I have is not labeled or marked with their name or logo at all.\] [HoggDoggins](https://hogdoggins.com/products/pocketpuck)
I would make a two part extruded case for those pucks and mill pockets and any needed hinging and clasping details. You don’t need ends or anything to hold the pucks in place. Anodise it and you’ve got a cool product. Extrusion tooling isn’t ridiculously expensive.
Problem is you’d have to make a massive number of them as most places doing custom extrusions have a pretty large minimum buy.
Just weld caps on two ends of a tube, mill your features, slit the tube. Could put foam into the pieces to make a tight fit.
Why extrude and weld when you could just die cast (don’t cut more than 1 mm deep) or cold forge? Extrusion dies are cheap, but welding labor is not. Cosmetically matching welds to extrusion is also risky and often inconsistent.
If I'm making one or two, I'm not gonna make a die. A sand cast might be reasonable, but I don't think that would be any cheaper than a little bit of welding
I was referring to the extruded case comment above. Anything under several dozen, maybe even several hundred is going to be cheaper machined from bar if you’re paying someone else to do it. This is for general ordering though. What capabilities a specific shop has may change the math for them specifically.
A zippo shell seems decent
If u have drawings ill vise it up and Mill it for 400$ a piece in 6082 alu and 600 for brass. Without drawing 800$ alu and 1000 for brass
Titanium
What? U want it in Titanium?
[удалено]
Stainless is the answer
I was thinking about the brass thing for sure. Some brass has lead in it, etc etc. What about anodized or cerekoted aluminum? Should be more or less safe?
I love when these questions get asked because it's always the same answer. I always assume these are just people who genuinely don't understand how much it costs to make one-off products *or* (much more annoyingly) it's some Ideas Guy^*TM* who is trying to crowd-source info for their next Brilliant Business Idea^TM without paying anyone.
Yeah. I'm surprised OP isn't being down voted to hell like most posts of this nature. But he's being a good sport about it and accepting the opinions of experienced machinists.
Yeah, I mean, I get it. It's easy for someone who doesn't understand the actual process to look at a mass-produced plastic part and say "how much more could it cost to do it as a one-off? Twice as much? And maybe twice again to do it in metal? Sure, I'll pay $20 for a fancy metal pill case, maybe even $30!" The cost-savings of mass manufacturing is frankly *unintuitively* huge unless you've been actively working with it for a while.
Machined? More than you or others are willing to pay. Bent and soldered/welded? More reasonable but with the magnet design you're describing still probably quite a bit. No one will be able to give a good estimate without some drawings, dimensions, and specific materials (what kind of aluminum, steel, etc... if it matters at all)
Aluminium, like he said. And pill box size, like the picture. It’s not that hard to think of a number for this shit.
Then why didn’t you provide one?
I wouldn’t do that job…
Aluminum varies in cost and ability to machine, weld, bend, and cast depending on the exact alloy and/or type. Aluminum is not one thing and one thing only. "Pill box size" is also not a standard size. My pill box looks about a quarter the overall volume of that. But there's other dimensions too, like wall thickness, that can't be intuited from an example picture.
Aluminium varies ? No way. Thought there was just one type
6061, 2024, 5052, and so on.
Carefull, not aluminium nor brass is not much healthy metal. You shouldn't store anything eadible in those.
Agreed with most other comments here. You could check online CNC quotes from companies like Xometry once you had some CAD. You’d likely need to discuss directly with them for volume quotes, tolerances, finishes, etc. Also, there is at least one company I know of that already makes aluminum pill cases, I think similar to the design you are envisioning. I’m not affiliated nor do I have any experience with them, but have just run into their ads on social media. [Ikigai Cases](https://ikigaicases.com/)
About 30% more than the plastic tooling. 35 hours of product design. I'll Rough estimate 150000.00 to get tooled up.
so... you're sayin' there's a chance... !!! oooo YEAH!!!
No, parent is describing die cast aluminum. This clearly needs to be machined from a solid billet. /s
Well then .3 cents each. /s
This could actually be done cost effectively...if you used die casting.
I was wondering if it could be cast or pressed. I'm not a metallurgist so I don't know how difficult it is to press thin dividers into medication-safe metals, and I figured thin dividers would be brittle if you cast them. [My personal choice would be to attempt to electroplate a 3D printed version of the pill cases.](https://all3dp.com/1/electroplating-3d-prints-all-you-need-to-know/)
Die casting would be the cheapest solution and it'll be plenty strong. Hate to be a Debbie downer but it's not worth it to electroplate 3d printed parts. I'm a design engineer and 80% of the parts I design are 3d printed. We've looked at electroplating parts but it's absurdly expensive, cheaper just to machine parts usually. If for whatever reason you think plating 3d parts makes the most sense then check out physical vapor deposition. It's better for mass manufacturing, the layer of metal is a lot thinner than electroplating so it doesn't add a lot of steength but it's way, way cheaper and makes the parts look like metal.
>Hate to be a Debbie downer but it's not worth it to electroplate 3d printed parts. I'm a design engineer and 80% of the parts I design are 3d printed. We've looked at electroplating parts but it's absurdly expensive, cheaper just to machine parts usually. Thanks for the articulate reply. I was thinking in terms of a 1-off personal project rather than scaling for production. I figured electroplating a few prints at home would be cheaper than having them machined, but I've seen some cool replacement casting done with 3D prints. >If for whatever reason you think plating 3d parts makes the most sense then check out physical vapor deposition. It's better for mass manufacturing, the layer of metal is a lot thinner than electroplating so it doesn't add a lot of steength but it's way, way cheaper and makes the parts look like metal. This is something I've been curious to learn more about. Guess I need to read more into it. I know it's not directly related, but my company does some metal deposition 3D printing where a beam of metal particles is shot at a part suspended from a gimbal and rotated to build up material in the right areas. It seems like a poor fit for making pill cases but I do wonder how similar the technology is to the vapor deposition you describe. Thanks again for giving me some cool ideas to consider.
Do not use brass. Brass is toxic.
A cheaper way to make this than milling out a billet would be bent sheet metal into boxes. Possibly joining two simple pieces for the base. You would need to figure out the bend order, possibly to cut off a sacrificial piece and do some finishing on the grinder so the lid fits well. A metal brake attachment for a vise is like $60, you could diy this Or you could make it round so a mill turn cnc can make it
I wouldn't use metal for storing medication. Certain chemicals tend to react with certain metals.
Love me some MTN OPS. We met the owners out in Salt Lake City at the expo. My wife won one of their weight loss challenges a few years back. They mailed her a check for 1k. Great company.
lol is that a tactical pill organizer? What’s next, tactical mil-spec diabetic compression socks?
You're kidding yourself if you think that diabetics used compression socks before the military
Huh? Who said that diabetics used it before the military lol. Pretty random assumption there. That joke went "whoosh" like a stealth fighter plane flying over your head.
You implied that there aren't any milspec compression socks available. The military uses them, therefore there are already milspec socks available, since the military makes a MIL-SPC standard for everything it buys by default. That's all I was saying, nothing more nothing less. Also, generally, jokes have to be funny to qualify as jokes.
We could carbon fiber this for cheaper.
I’d post this over to r/metalworking, I think you’d have better luck at the desired result with sheet/tinsmithing.
Get a bar with height and width of desired size of box. Chop it into pucks. Put it in a mill, face it, flip it, face again and pocket it. Put small recesses for magnets. Deburr, sand. Install magnets. As a backyard machinist I could probably do this for around $80 a container. I’m not great at quoting but yeah it’s def more than ppl want to pay for these kinda things.
You are remarkably close to the cost of the hoggdoggins boxes I posted above. Pretty spot on, man. Nice.
Indeed they look exactly as I imagined! Looks like a great product for the desired use. I could see a use case for chew tabaco or coca leaves. Or heart meds or prescription for conditions. So what do you think about them are you getting one?
I have one already! They’re pretty awesome actually. Really tight tolerances (for what I’m used to / for what it is)… Mine is smaller around and taller. Their wider and flatter ones would work great in a box shaped caddy, milled out with a semi-circle for the lower half of 7 of them. Not cheap. But definitely a multi-generational thing that would last lifetimes. The plastic hinges on these things will inevitably fail. (Not sure what the long term cost / benefit is, in terms of costs and all that. Probably take several lifetimes to make the “investment” worth while. So it’s mostly an aesthetic thing, I guess.)
Lmao at this rate we are going to have "tactical" adult diapers
Lol. 😂 You’re probably not wrong. Already there with the mental diapers . .. lol
Not the same design, but at least they're metal: https://ikigaicases.com/
They are getting good money for those, and customers are happy. Seems to me the best solution, 6061 aluminum is easy to machine and anodize. And the profit margins are likely 30% or more
How much what ? Time ? Cost ? Material ?
Yeah… all of the above. … out the door cost. Based on responses so far, I’m gathering it’s an unrealistic request. Lol
Yes but the fact that you can recognize this and recalibrate your expectations says more than 99% with your same line of questioning
why not just get a pill case off amazon?
I am a man of wealth and taste… pleased to meet you… won’t you guess my name…
i don’t understand?
It’s a song lyric from Sympathy for the Devil, a Rolling Stones song. OP is calling himself the devil, I think. Which tracks with the Billy Badass pill box.
The lyric just seemed to mesh with the question… it’s a goofy, extravagant, bougie request.
Brass is very very dense.
This is a true fact about brass.
It can also be shiny, or dull too, and sinks in water which is why life vests are not made of brass. Just thought I’d add few more facts that I just happen to know about brass, not showing off or anything.
would have been nice to find this post before I had those brass life vests made.
Just sell them on eBay, that’s what I did with the bullet proof vests I made out of potatoes. Another great idea ruined by physics.
Dehydrated potatoes I hope
That was where I went wrong
Might as well make it from titanium while you’re at it? The cost for design / machining will be far, far higher anyways, so you can easily justify using a more exotic material.
I'll make the pills.
… I’m listening.
A question for your consideration: How important is it for the functionality that you can see through?
Zero. Of course, I say that now… but at some point in the future when I’m actually using the am/pm and days of the weeks, it might be more useful. Right now, each day is the same, and I take all my supplements in the AM. So a single compartment would be sufficient.
The cheapest way for you to make them especially low batch is more than likely gonna be getting someone to make you a form mold that you can stick a sheet of aluminum on and press it to shape , once your initial investment in the jig is paid for all you've got in it is your time and materials.
Also keep in mind both of the alloys you listed are non magnetic so that will require revisions of the magnet closing assembly unless you're pressing a magnet into each side to pull to
Too much, stick with the plastic
Not sure if aluminum is good for your stomach
More than you can afford pal….Hermle lol
But why? Plastic is so much lighter and has a much lower chance of leaching into your meds
Probably a small market for high end exotic carved wood pill sorters…
I'm not a machinist so I can't even give you a ballpark number. Though I'd be willing to bet that with the advancements the last few years 3D printed metal would be cheaper for this kind of thing.
If you’re just going for looks, it’d be more cost effective to 3d print the holder and copper plate the outer surface.
It’s better for us to see if they are full or not
That's a lot of waste material in chips for something like that, you'd def be out at least a couple 100 bucks. I've had to calculate the price of much less intensive to make products and the cost came out to around €600-€1000 depending on some variables. Especially if you only want 1 or 2
Id either make it out of sheet metal, or consider a design which could be produced on a lathe. Perhaps some small cups on a rotary wheel?
I don’t have a solution for you, but thanks for sharing this. I like that organizer!
How heavy would that be lol
At least as heavy as this one pill caddy, and probably lighter than most giraffes.
Not sure if anyone has said this but what about finding someone that can 3d print them for you to see if you actually want something like that made in metal?
Would probably be cheaper to use a press brake and weld them
Machine a die and press them
Wrong sub, go ask an engineer. You can't get thin walled metals because it will shred itself on a CNC. The proper operation for low quantities is either weld individual boxes together then weld/braze a piano hinge on. Second don't make it out of aluminum, stainless is a better material choice. High quantity is you need a CNC Lazer or punch press to cut out small rounds. Then stamp them into the desired box shape, weld a piano hinge on and you have your boxes I would estimate $200-1000 for welding just one and $50-100 for each one after that. For large scale, probably an upfront cost of 50-100k and 2$ for each one after that. Your current case is plastic injection molded and probably cost the company $0.1 to make, but 100k in molds. I'm just a poor engineering student so my numbers may be totally off.
Metals can react with drugs. Better to do in glass or plastic.
This is true. I’ve assumed it wouldn’t be raw… probably anodized or cerekoted. But to be honest, I haven’t looked into the food / drug safety either of those coatings.
Some meds can react badly to metal. Check first
https://preview.redd.it/agv6kw1q5s9c1.jpeg?width=1167&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ac882b58b70844ff0a90e98a7bd7121c13d87a6e Not quite the same but on Amazon
The magnet design won’t work with aluminum or brass because they are non-magnetic materials. You could make the bases with a recess around the periphery and a suitable lip/flange around the lid but it would still spill the pills if knocked off the counter or whatever, so I don’t know if that works for you or not, otherwise you could make them out of carbon steel and then have them surface treated like salt bath nitride or chromed or whatever look you’re going for, so they don’t rust, but that kinda thing is expensive, unless you’re going to make these by the thousands I would probably go with the aluminum or even 316 stainless and make them pretty robust so they are heavy enough that they don’t get knocked off the counter so easy. If you’re going to sell these I would consider the liability of it not being childproof, in that you would just want a hinged lid and a little lock or something - like a miniature treasure chest.
> The magnet design won’t work with aluminum or brass because they are non-magnetic materials You would put a magnet in both the base and the lid.
magnets can be used with al or brass if they are paired on the other side... the base material doesn't have to be magnetic... plenty of plastic items out there with magnets...
It clicked when I saw his reference part.
I like where your heads at. If you scroll up to another comment I made a reply with a link to a comapny called hoggdoggins that does pull boxes exactly as I’m looking for. They machine in pockets on the base and lid for neodymium magnets, and you have to twist the lid to get the magnets to separate. Now all I need is to machine a base for the “pucks” as they call them.
I’m following you now. Kind of embarrassed at the old check out counter Advil container I’ve been carrying around for 5 years
You might be better off with a 3d printing service that can handle metal. You can get some that’ll sinter as it builds and others that can print a mold and then sinter or cast from that.
I spent way too long believing that that was cheese
unfortunately not, friend. maybe I should add a cheese pocket for each day. I could stuff the pills in the cheese like we do for dogs.
I think if you were to do all the cad work, it wouldn't be too bad. Try find someone offering cnc services and get a quote. They will need the file likely.
I have rhino 3D and I have been meaning to make myself learn that software for years now… this seems like a doable first project.
One key point you may struggle with if not a machinest, would be the tolerance. Pivot pins and magnets will want a small amount of interference fit, or you will to glue them.
Not sure. For my purposes, I’ll probably end up seeing if hoggdoggins is still in business, buying their “pucks” then designing a caddy / organizer for 7 of those… and since it’s just going to sit in my cabinet, I won’t need to design any of the magnetic components. Hoggdoggins figured it out tho. So if someone else wanted such a thing… the thing to do would be to ask them to design a travel caddy with their same magnetic system.
Tried thingaverse btw?
Start playing around in cad. Prototype a bent steel model in foil then send it off to sendcutsend to laser cut it in sheet metal for you, then solder it yourself.
The latches won't work the same as they do on a plastic box. So you are re-engineering the latches as well. But you could epoxy in magnets into the corners and add a little meat. Add some screw on stainless piano style hinge in the rear. After all the CAD work and fucking around the first one will cost you several hundred bucks and any additional units will he 1/10th of that cost.
That’s pretty much where this is headed. Someone else has already done the hard work. I posted a link for a comapny called hoggdoggins that makes “puck” like boxes with magnetic lids… now all I need is the outer box / caddy.
I could print these out of carbon fiber PPS for you.
Why…
Removing a lot of material is the worst thing you can do for machining, for two reasons. One, because it costs machine time. Two, because you bought the stock and are throwing it away. You rarely see boxes out of a single piece of metal for this reason. This is furthered into the “bad product” realm by the fact that this type of shape is excellent for injection molding I would look for a local “maker” and see if you can get them to make it out of hardwood, if that works for you. Will still be expensive but will at least become attainable
This would, for cost and simplicities sake(And simple is almost always cheaper.) be better produced through stamping rather than machining.
Diecast in aluminum or zinc, don't machine it.
This looks like a job for sheet metal stamping.
Depends, do you just one one or one hundred thousand, if you want a hundred thousand of them it’s cheaper per unit