DIY Numpad: First Completed Prototype!

I machined a top part of the case out of some oak wood; the plank had some internal cracks and as a result after being cut out it broke into a few pieces (I'll need to find some better and denser woods later):

Oof.

 I glued the pieces together the best I could and applied some polyurethane finish:

Uncoated.

I put in the 4-40 threaded inserts into the holes (they fit snugly with a little of pressure) and secured them with a little bit of superglue:

Perfect fit.

Screwing the top on:

Not too bad.

I now need to make the body out of the nicer wood too, but for now seeing everything together was big moment in the project.

The glued edge doesn't line up. You can also see the chipped clear plate with the poor surface finish.

I'm also a ran a few tests in acrylic to see try to find the right feeds and speeds to prevent melting. I simply can't run my machine fast enough with my current lead screws (10 TPI) even at the router's lowest speed setting. I broke two endmills, both due to lost steps from resonance. I need go faster than 70 inches per minute but am unable to consistently. I need to install some bearing blocks to support the axial load (so it's not on the motor directly) and pretension the lead screws.

Okay finish on the floor but not on the walls.

Chipped the end mill on the screw.

I could get good floor finish with lower optimal loads and smaller stepovers even at low feedrates, as expected. I tried a finishing pass but the feedrate wasn't high enough and I just got a fuzzy edge.

I also tested out engraving with a V bit (for when I want to engrave a section of the aluminum plate):

Wingman.

Will need to see what to do about the acrylic; I want to find what the true upper limit of my feed rate is after fixing the current lead screws before looking at getting new lead screws.