Good day.
I am looking for some good quality project boxes where I can manage to mount different pcb boards with screws og slides in a appropiate way. When i search on internet most boxes seems empty with no mounting possibilities. In the first place i will only need a box for a standard esp8266 4 channel relay board and a buck converter but would also need enclosure for various pcb boards in different sizes in the future. Any recomendations?
Thanks for reading
Brds
Kristian
Quite a few of the common enclosures have some slots for an appropriately sized PCB to slide into. I recently did a bunch of comparison shopping for enclosures. Here are the ones I ended up buying that have PCB slots:
The prices are constantly changing so there is no guarantee these listings are still the best prices, but they were at the time I did the shopping. I have noted the ones that have increased significantly since my purchase, some of the others actually have gone down.
I've never actually used these slots. I prefer to just drill mounting holes in the enclosure and attache the PCB to the enclosure with screws and standoffs. I'm really a fan of the 1590 series cast aluminum enclosures, which come in a variety of standard sizes (but don't have any sort of mounting slots). They are significantly more expensive than the plastic or extruded aluminum enclosures but those things are bombproof. The Chinese seem to always manage to mess up the finish before I get a chance to mess it up myself, but it's not much work to clean them up with some sandpaper, which gives a nice "brushed" finish. I just did an experiment using vinyl resist and a sandblaster to add some text on the enclosure and it turned out really nice. The 1590 enclosures are thick enough that you can sandcarve in for a bit of relief.
Some of the nicer plastic enclosures have built-in standoffs that you can attach the PCB to using self-tapping screws:
I prefer metal and didn't find any great deals on the good plastic enclosures so I don't have any recommendations for specific listings on those.
This is my number one use for my 3d printer.
I picked up a monoprice select mini which has been very cost effective.
Is it really cost effective to 3D print enclosures when manufactured ones of much higher quality are available for such a low price? Even if you grab pre-made CAD designs, it seems uneconomical just for the filament cost, post-print cleanup, equipment wear and tear, print time, fire risk. And of course there is a fairly high failure rate on prints so you need to factor that into the price too.
Of course the 3D printer really shines when you need a custom enclosure size but then you are going to spend a lot of time on the CAD design.
I should note that for the ESP8266 (or any other RF communication project), a metal enclosure is probably not a good idea since it will block the WiFi, unless you have an external antenna.
2lb of pla is under $20. Print time can be an issue if your looking for anything in volume. I spend around 20min in onshape on my phone to make a design. The biggest benefit is that you always have the right case on hand so long as plastic is acceptable.
For mounting ideas, spend some time looking through here.
https://forum.arduino.cc/index.php?topic=445951.0
Such as:
CAD on a phone? That sounds like an absolute nightmare.
This is off topic, but try it out. The touch interface works better than a mouse and keyboard. onshape is free for hobby use and it’s made by the original team behind solidworks, so they have a very good idea of how to make a CAD program.
