Bespoke Project Enclosures .. .. .. .

[Musicmanager]

Hi Guys

Although my project work is still significantly limited by my knowledge and experience, or rather the lack of it, I do like to present my efforts in the best possible way and I'm often frustrated by the difficulty of identifying a project enclosure, ABS or otherwise, that isn't either just too small or much too big and is never just the right size.
I've been searching for some time for a convenient and cost effective means of making my own enclosures so that I'm in control of the size issue.

The reason for this post is that I believe I've found it !

This is a simple aluminium profile which accommodates a variety of panel thicknesses and includes a separate raised slot to hold a PCB either vertically or horizontally.

I purchased a few lengths of 1metre @ 6.95 Euros per length and I've made a couple of trial boxes with results I find impressive.

The European agent is www.gie-tec.de whilst stateside it is www.techno-isel.com

I thought this might be interesting information to some .. ..

S

 

[AnalogKid]

Interesting extrusion. It does eat up some front surface area compared to other techniques, but that's the price of a multi-use part.

In the past I worked for an electronic enclosure company. We rarely used self-tapping screws. Instead, for something like this extrusion, we pressed in brass inserts. For the same screw size it made the extrusion larger, but those little puppies never stripped out or pulled loose.

ak

 

[Musicmanager]

Hi AK

Yes I did find another german company who made a smaller section extrusion and used a pressed in brass insert but I couldn't get them to respond to me and after several emails and phone calls I gave up on them.

I got over the self tapping screws by tapping the hole and using M5 x 15mm panheads

S

 

[JonSea]

One point I try to make with people - before you start even thinking about laying out a circuit board, figure out what you're going to do for an enclosure. This is particularly important for prototypes. An off-the-shelf enclosure may work well, but the circuit board needs to be designed to fit. Changing the board size slightly and adding mounting holes in the right locations may allow an inexpensive enclosure to work well. Not planning ahead may mean investing $$$ in an enclosure because the board is a few millimeters too long.

These extrusions do look like a nice solution. Circuit board material could be used for the panels.

 

[MaxHeadRoom78]

For anything above the small hand held enclosure, but a typical large operator pendant or electrical enclosure that I cannot find off the shelf, I get a local metal fabricator to build me one to my CAD drawing, I find it less expensive than the extrusion source.
Max.