Odd aluminum profile :: how to connect?

Hello, I snatched some office cubicle partitioning panels that were being scrapped and I am staring at them atm with no good solution as how to create a good and rigid frame with them.
These panels come in 2 sizes, at least the ones I have. 60x45 and 80x45.

The sad fact is that I only have 2 60x45s which I would like to keep intact as they have some sound dampening inner core by design.

These are the panels:



The extrusion profile is very particular (at least from my experience) and there is no inner structure to be tapped. There are two types of extrusions, vertical members are thicker and the horizontal members are, as seen in the pic, slimmer but still strong.

I have designed all this panel in CAD and will provide a STL file too as an attachement maybe there is someone willing to help here:



The slimmer profile can be seen in the STL. I haven't modeled the corners exactly because they are much more complicated and wouldn't help in any way, so they are there only for visual cues. In the STL I have "exploded" the parts to be easily broke apart in slicer.

I am interested in:
1) the best approach of arrangement and
2) first choice is some off-the-shelf solutions before going to order from far away

The thingiverse project for this post is at: [www.thingiverse.com]

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/26/2016 06:04PM by realthor.

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I made my frame from some odd-ish extrusion too, but not as odd as yours I think mine are made to some standard and should have all the proper connectors/nuts, but I just couldn't find them...


There were a few problems at first - the center section doesn't allow to connect two extrusions by drilling and tapping as usual, so I bought some corner brackets. At the time I didn't realize (first time building something out of extrusions) that the brackets have some fins protruding and they need to fit inside the slot, I only bought them by outer dimensions. The result - fins are too loose in the slot, and brackets can be mounted crooked. Can be overcome, but requires more time aligning everything...

The second problem was odd slot dimensions - I couldn't find any nuts that would fit properly, and the ones that fit the width of the slot, need some grinding to reduce the thickness... So I made some myself out of steel flat bar - not an ideal solution where precision is needed, but works very well with angle brackets and other things that allow some movement to align things perfectly.

To help with alignment, I made myself some other brackets out of steel, and so far, this looks like a good idea. If your extrusion only has slots on two opposite sides, you could combine this with regular angle brackets to join them on the corners, or maybe even make some like mine but from steel angle to join all three extrusions at once...

Thanks for chiming in.

My situation is odder than the odd things I have around right now. I'll try to explain:

1) I like to keep the panels that are already solid like they are. If I take them apart I will only loosen the assembly.
2) Keeping the 2 side panels as is makes it pretty tough to connect them to one another with some sort of bracing. In the attached pic you can see I have 3 types of extrusions that are involved,: top and bottom horizontals, middle-bracing and vericals. The Verticals are most beefy and I am trying to come up with a design to use some of those to connect the two panels into a box structure.

My problem here is that I can't connect the bridging pieces to the sides so i prevent skewing of the box:



The panels are some sort of particleboard, I don't think MDF but they are pretty heavy. I wouldn't want to secure the bridges to the wood faces and connecting them to the aluminum tiny profiles seems not a good idea either. So if I am stuck with only the solutions I've sketched then my box would be prone to skewing.

One solution is having a bottom MDF floor that I screw into the corner caps, which have some tapped holes by design. But MDF would somehow wash off the advantages of stable aluminum structure (due to expansion/etc).

I welcome any other solutions. STL file is available for the rapid CAD designer out there to grab.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/27/2016 05:07AM by realthor.

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oh, I understand your situation better now. I can't come up with anything useful I'm afraid, other than you could probably exchange these extrusions for some better ones at a local scrapyard. As long as there are no "impurities" or stuff other than aluminium inside, weight is all they care about

Anyway, good luck with your build

Basically the corner brackets that connect the bridges to the side panels offer a good structure. Now the skewing is usually prevented with diagonal braces but a bottom MDF floor would behave exactly the same.
If one wants to enclose his printer there has to be some skinning and while poly-carbonate panel of some sort is sometimes used as sides, that is expensive and most people resort to MDF/plywood for this.

Personally I don't want to enclose it but if that is what will offer it the necessary rigidity so be it. I am thinking that the weight alone will prevent too much rattling.

Edit: I also don't mind drilling the profiles ... it's just quite mindbending for me where.
If I would try to connect the bridge pieces to the sides I would have two options:
1) use again a corner bracket of sorts and drill through the wood
2) move the bridge at the same level with the bracing extrusion on the panel and again use a corner bracket of sorts and drill through the aluminum:



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/27/2016 06:00AM by realthor.

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I think milemunter is some sort of bot or experimental random text generator. His first post rambled on about office renovations and aluminum products, too. This one threw is some stuff about data communication through partitions. Weird...

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Ultra MegaMax Dominator 3D printer: [drmrehorst.blogspot.com]

I reported it and now it's removed from this thread.
Thanks Moderators for such quick response

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/27/2016 08:49AM by realthor.

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It's funny how one thing can lead to another. I wanted to try something and stumbled upon my odd profiles I've set aside for days like this one ... Would 2xM4 long screws hold enough grip on this profiles to be able to build a frame the way you see in the pictures below?





Would this hold provided enough thread would be cutting along the existing channels?

Edit: I designed the past days thing:1382042, a solution for a square tubes frame that prevents any degree of freedom (rotation or translation) of the members, if this doesn't work I might have to try to adapt that for these odd profiles.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/02/2016 06:36AM by realthor.

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Getting some cheap profile can still turn out a little expensive when you have to find the L brackets, Corners, multiple size Tnuts, Screws of certain length ...Cant help with how your going to join 2 different pieces, a lot of experimentation, maybe you have what you need lying around and you need to try a few different approaches. I managed to get an L bracket into the profiles I have but the profiles where the same so not quite the same problem you have, while waiting for the correct nuts for the corner pieces, but now I have the 6mm Tnuts I doubt i'll be removing the L bracket as its probably more sturdy, though I can use both as the holes in the tnuts matches the L brackets, just cheap L brackets not the proper tslot ones. But because the L brackets are longer they interfere more/ less travel, but if I wanted the triangle corners I can only add 2, as the back of the profile has no slots only holes, restrictions, compromise, its a juggling act, maybe 3D printing is the solution for what you need, maybe drill some holes, some barrel nuts?
maybe wait till you have another profile you can add, there doesnt seem much to work with its all off center, cant you rotate it 90deg looks like it might mate better,

The profiles are very unsuited for this framing thing... I tried some barrel nuts but the ones I have are just about as tall as the profile is wide so there is the risk of it slipping out... well I don't sweat on it...maybe one day one bright idea will come to me. Until then I am happy using steel square tubing 1.6mm thick. Brackets are way more expensive than bolts anyway.

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My Things, mostly experimental stuff