Unless you’re into circuit sculptures, generally speaking, a working circuit isn’t the end-point of a lot of electronics projects. To protect your new creation from grabby hands, curious paws, and the ravages of nature, you’ll probably want some kind of enclosure. These days a lot of us would probably run it off on the 3D printer, but some people would rather stay electronics hobbiests without getting into the 3D printing hobby. For those people, [mircemk] shares how he creates professonal-looking enclosures with handtools.
The name [mircemk] will seem familiar to longtime readers– we’ve featured many of his projects, and they’ve always stood out for the simple but elegant enclosures he uses. The secret, it turns out, is thin PVC sheeting from a sign shop. At thicknesses upto and including 5 mm, the material can be bent by hand and cut with hobby knives. It’s obviously also amenable to drilling and cutting with woodworking tools as well. Drilling is especially useful to make holes for indicator LEDs. [mircemk] recommends cyanoacrylate ‘crazy’ glue to hold pieces together. For holding down the PCB, the suggestion of double-sided tape will work for components that won’t get too hot.
Rather than paint, the bold contrasting colours we’ve become used to are applied using peel-and-stick wallpaper, which is a great idea. It’s quick, zero mess, and the colour is guaranteed to be evenly applied. It might even help hold the PVC enclosure together ever so slightly. You can watch him do it in the video embedded below.
We hate to say it, but for a one-off project, this technique probably does beat a 3D printed box for professional looks, assuming you have [mircemk]’s motorskills. If you don’t have said motor skills, check out this parametric project box generator. If you’d rather avoid PVC while making a square box to hold a PCB, have you considered using PCBs?
Thanks to [mircemk] for the tip! If you have a tip or technique you want to share, please box it up and send it to the tipsline
