Hacker News Reader

Comment by mjanke | Hacker News Reader

From 1979-1984, I programmed and operated NC & CNC lathes and milling machines that made parts far more complex and precise that what they are showing. One of our customers was the beer bottling industry.

In the period from 1984-89 I watched pick & place circuit board assembly, pick & place robotics, robotic polishers, robotic bead blasters and spray painters operate in local machine shops, automotive plants and electronics manufactures.

I've never worked in a shop that punched out cylinders, but I'm sure that the process they are using for punching out the cylinder from a block of aluminum is how beer cans get made.

It's not amazing.

View on HN

You may well be right, but I think the key claim is this:

"Most metal stampings go through one or two die tools to produce the final shape. With the Mac Pro though, the challenge is to produce a massive amount of plastic deformation without tearing, rippling or deforming the perfect cylindrical surface."

and, below the figure:

"The results of the first (of between 4 and 5) deep draw stamping operations. Notice how the Mac Pro part is nowhere near the final length."

As I'm sure you know, there's a big difference between a single-use aluminium can, which is both small and thin, and a large part like this, which has to have both structural stability, very high dimensional tolerances, and a good surface finish. That said, you obviously know more about this than I do, so maybe you can comment on the quotes from the article?

I'm not an expert, but if they are simply swaging the tubes out until correct length is met, it's not amazing.

If the deep drawn stampings were so precise, why are they machining the surfaces after they are stamped? ;)

The processes in and of itself aren't amazing, I think what's amazing is the scale that Apple operates on. Not many other PC manufacturers use CNC milling as extensively as Apple. Here's an interesting video with Jony Ive talking about the process: http://youtu.be/nUHROAtyGIg?t=2m29s

Reply on news.ycombinator.com