I’ve been starting to think about making an enclosure for my friend Mike’s UCD400 amplifier kit.  I want to use my new CNC toy, obviously, and make something really special.  So I had an idea the other night.  In the middle of the other night.  For which I was awake for several hours thinking about the details.  I am leaning heavily towards using up some of the 300lbs of white Corian material that I have for at least the faceplate of his amp.  Rather than use an ugly, off-the-shelf power button, I realized it should be fairly easy to make a fancy custom power button.  Something big and ostentatious, and befitting of an amplifier of this class.  It’s kind of a ripoff of the XBox 360 style power button.  A light pipe ring, in this case made out of clear polycarbonate, will glow via some LEDs mounted to a PCB behind the front panel.  An inner button (eventually domed or sunken or something cool) mates up against a small tactile switch, or if necessary a push-on/push-off style switch.

This is just my first pass, but it seems like it will probably work well with some refinement and fine tuning of the looks.  This is the first time I’ve gone from an idea to CAD/CAM to making parts!