Mounting pcb in hobby box electric enclosure

Hello all i was wondering if someone could tell me how i go about mounting hardware in this box without drilling through it? The picture is of the inside of a hobby box/enclosure box,many thanks in advance

Make or obtain a sub-panel to fit the box (most professional suppliers will offer one) and mount it to the bosses on the bottom of the box. You can then mount your electronics to that panel.

Alternately if you're designing a PCB, size it to fit the box with mounting holes in locations to match the mounting bosses.

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Im trying to use generic pcbs like this one,any ideas?

I use double sided 3M foam tape. Only issue is if too much is used it a bear to get back out of the box.

OR

These boxes are ABS and can be glued with plastic pipe solvent. You could purchase an ABS electrical box at the hardware store, cut out the side panels, drill and install flat head screws point up towards your board. Glue it in with the pipe solvent and your good to go.

You will have to put a nut or spacer on the screws so they don't turn once installed.

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I like that concept thats very smart,what i did once was cut old clothing that wasnt conductive and stuffed it in a small box to avoid shaking around

JohnRob reminded me of another technique I've used that might work really well with the PCB you have. I use epoxy to glue threaded spacers onto the bottom of the box, then you can screw the board down. That way it's easy to take the board back out if you need to.

Simplest way to do it is to screw the board to the spacers so they're aligned properly , apply glue to the underside of the spacers, then press it down onto the enclosure. I use epoxy because I have hundreds of steel spacers and that's the only adhesive I found that would reliably adhere steel to ABS or polycarbonate.

If you get plastic threaded spacers, then other glues will probably work just as well.

You can also buy nylon spacers that have adhesive tabs, but I have heard they don't stick for very long.

[edit]
This just prompted me to try an experiment with Gorilla Glue instead of epoxy since I have a tube of it on the table. We'll see how that goes :slight_smile:

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A few drops of hotglue.. It will hold enough and it is possible to break it when needed once it is cold.

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Thanks but i need more of a long term mounting solution

Hotglue can be permanent and can last for many years.. but if you want to take it out for repair or replacement, you can break it. Normaly it won't come loose due vibration. only excessive heat...

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The ABS glue is really a solvent. It actually kind of melts both materials and when stuck together will not come apart.....ever.

You can find different shapes of ABS in hardware stores and on line. I have a piece of "L" shaped ABS is great for making brackets on the sides of the box. Or from pieces of other appliances about to be discarded.

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So preliminary results with White Gorilla Glue are that

  1. Adheres steel 4-40 threaded spacers to ABS plastic very well. After 2 hours, it looks like the PC board will break before the glue lets loose.
  2. It's completely useless attempting to glue steel to polycarbonate.

I'm going to make a blog post about this, in part because I don't want to forget what kind of glue I used :slight_smile: but for now you can see the pix here: Fixing PCB in enclosure | Cedar Lake Instruments

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Feedback 4 hours later: I'm sticking with epoxy.
The White gorilla glue held really well to the ABS at first, but 4 hours later it comes off very easily.
I'm going to have to try that again because now I'm puzzled as to how it adhered so well and then just... didn't.

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Did it form a mechanical lock? Because alot of the time it can make a big difference in the threads

I don't know what you mean.

3M 'VHB'.

Try building on the lid, like it's a plate, instead of trying to work with everything in the box (don't make a ship in a bottle unless you have to).

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I forgot about mentioning the cover assembly...

I prefer the 3M double sided foam tape for this type of application. The VHB is a little thinner and doesn't do a well on non flat surfaces. And I think you only would need the VHB if the assembly was being launched with the space shuttle.

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