Consumer/client facing enclosures

[Aggressive_Doughnut]

There are quite a few (there must be thousands) of posts here, including the sticky, about enclosures/cases/etc. but they almost all seem to be for industry electronics products.  Does anyone have a few sources of trustworthy sources for enclosures that will end up in the hands of clients or for the retail space?  I am currently in the market for a solution somewhat like an Amazon Kindle case with a stand, but the sources I find here have things that look more like project boxes or scope/dmm/psu enclosures.  Does everyone just go with injection molding for such projects?

[coppercone2]

what style do you like?

For instance VWR lab equipment is pretty chic.

High end option : die cast, other type of casting, welded metal (i.e. you work with a sheet metal guy to make contours or setup a line with presses).

Low end or light option : plastic shit. Extrusion is $$ though you need volume to absorb costs.

The enclosures look like shit because their usually cheap extrusion. You can make very nice metalic objects using tools like sanders, benders, welding, polish, etc.

A hybrid of plastic and metal thats 'high end consumer' is proxxon tools.

You can make very nice thin enclosures out of aluminum, titanium, steel, etc with tig welding. Those welders have settings to do like 0.005 inches thick metal. For small production I guess it would be welding together laser cut nice looking sheet metal?

It will depend 100% on volume. An auto body shop can pretty much make a Iphone case IMO. Costs will keep going down the bigger your volume is because specialized machines will reduce fine finishing requirements (polishing welded curves) and reduce the number of welds or joints you need.

[Aggressive_Doughnut]

Thanks for the response! For our project we are looking at a first run of 2000 with more based on market response ( corporate sounding terminology - we'll get more if we sell out our first run stock).  I am almost positive that we aren't looking at metal cases since the contents are very low cost to begin with, we are trying to keep costs to a relative minimum (within reasonable quality), and the device is not likely to be handled much once it's in place.  Perhaps extrusion plastic is what we should be searching for - it's hard to know the terms you don't know when English isn't your first language :-P

[Aggressive_Doughnut]

Also OMG I just realized you are at black magic - I love you guys!  Great products!

[mikeselectricstuff]

OKW do some nice higher-quality enclosures, but at 2K it may be cheaper to do your own mould, bearing in mind you may be able to save assembly costs by incorporating mounting details etc.

[Dubbie]

Depending on your design, getting injection moulded cases can be quite cheap these days. Do a dozen iterations using a quality SLA 3D printer to zero in on your design, then get some quotes from China. Couple be as low as 3-4K for the tooling depending on what you need.

[coppercone2]

black magic design is a common joke written on things like smith charts handed out to students. I am not affiliated with any corporate entity called BMD. I saw it in a sophomore T-line class a long time ago. The idea being that RF/Wave theory is very different compared to usual electronic design things and its very difficult to wrap your head around (whereas its easier for a physics student that does not deal with complicated linear circuits and solves 'simple' field problems all the time). And it looks a little bit like a worm hole or something used to summon entities from different planes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabriel%27s_Horn



But speaking of black magic, your product will obviously be better if its in a metal case for EM reasons. I always buy a metal case over a plastic case electronic if there is an option. And I know I can fully restore it easily to beautiful condition or even improve its surface finish if its metal if i like it.

[Aggressive_Doughnut]

Very funny!  There is Black Magic Design who makes high end A/V recording/editing gear.  I have a friend who is a professional film maker and he uses their stuff - especially cameras - for everything.

[LapTop006]

Very funny!  There is Black Magic Design who makes high end A/V recording/editing gear.  I have a friend who is a professional film maker and he uses their stuff - especially cameras - for everything.

Based in Australia (Melbourne) too.

[ed678]

anyone have a schematic for a VWR accupower 4000 power supply?
I did find a low cost substitute for the lcd but it also over shoots the set voltage output......

[coppercone2]

those supplies suck and don't regulate too well (electrophoriss). not a substitute for a lab power supply. I heard the same thing elsewhere. You won't get a high end HVDC PSU with any eletrophorisis one. It's meant for wet chemsitry work not electronics so its designed as such. You probobly wont find easy ways to improve it.