There was a time when no self-respecting electronics engineer would build a big project without at least one panel meter. They may be a rare part here in 2024, but we find ourselves reminded of them by [24Eng]’s project. It’s a 3D printed housing for one of those common small OLED displays, designed to be mounted on a panel with just a single round hole. Having had exactly this problem in the past trying to create a rectangular hole, we can immediately see the value in this.
It solves the problem by encasing the display in a printed shell, and passing a coarsely threaded hollow cylinder behind it for attachment to the panel and routing wires. This is where we are reminded of panel meters, many of which would have a similar sized protrusion on their rear housing their mechanism.
The result is a neatly made OLED display mounting, with a hole that’s ease itself to create. Perhaps now you’ll not be afraid to make your own panels.
Nice solution, but that asymmetry itches my OCD.
And, like the linked post mentions, less fugly screw heads are an option.
And calling everything related to control-issues for “OCD”, itches my controller…
Oh good! STLs included!
I’m wondering why on earth he designed it with the countersunk screws on the rear and the nylock nuts on the front!
To give it some sort of steampunk look (but white plastic rather than brass or brass coloured plastic)?
My guess is to get it to flush mount against the panel it will attach to.
Ahhh – of course!
To add to what ‘hartl’ says below, an alternate to glue would perhaps be to make the two plastic parts clip together…. admittedly it is a lot harder to design a FDM/FFM printed part to do that that will work with everyones printer…. What about four or so tabs that can be glued rather than gluing all the way around (much easier to break away a couple of short tabs than the entire perimeter for service or reuse).
It could also be done without screws, just glue the parts together or embed the display in the print. There’s no need to ever take it apart again.
Thanks for sharing! It’s a nice solution. Even better it’s in OpenSCAD.
No offence to the creator, but my immediate thought is that you can also 3D print a rectangular bezel for the display, where the lip of the bezel hides the less than perfect cutting of the rectangular hole. If you wanted circles then this is a fine solution, but rectangular holes are not really any harder if your sins can be hidden by the bezel….
I thought this was going to be in the style of a VDO automotive gauge, where the front has a bezel and then you have a ~52mm nut that threads onto the back to hold it seamlessly into a panel. Worth looking at.