Electrical Boxes

Ways to Incorporate Plastic in Your Electrical Box

Frances Bennett Engineering Blog, Materials of Enclosures, Steel enclosures , , , ,
Electrical Enclosure, Electronics Enclosure, Electrical Boxes, Plastic Material, Plastic Enclosures,

There are companies now whose main goal is to help the scientists and engineers to have functional electronics enclosure as soon as possible. Companies are now making it to a point that they are always improving and expanding their capabilities that effectively aligns with the customers what they want to achieve in their respective industries.

In these recent years, because of the cost of the metals being used for electronics enclosures, there has been increasing number of people requesting for plastic parts or components. Companies are now stocking different plastic materials that can be machined in just 2-3 days. Its either alone or part of the overall enclosure assembly. In this article, we will show you how these companies uses plastics as part of their enclosure assembly.

Tips for Using Plastics in Enclosures

Acrylic and acetal primarily are included in 3-axis milled, they can be made either on CNC router or mill. In addition to this, this only menas that countersinks, counterbores, pockets, or any other 3-axis milled feature may be added.

The cutouts that were being made on the acrylic and acetal are being milled and is also subjected to a minimum corner radius at it gets bigger once the thickness increases. This factor should be carefully considered when you are mounting rectangular or squares components in the cutouts of the plastic. Once these said constraints began to be a problem, you should approach the companies manufacturing plastic accessory to help you with your goal.

When you are attaching plastics through the threaded fasteners, it is advisable that the utilisation of holes inside the plastic with bolts, nuts washers instead of threading them inside the plastic. Be careful not to strip the threads when you are installing fasteners.

In case that the user will be utilizing the RF sensor technology or antennas inside the enclosure, (Wi-Fi), it is suggested to use the acrylic panels or acetal panels. Because sheet metals can attenuate signals.

The acrylic plastic can be etched during the milling process including the silkscreened graphics can also be applied. Both of the techniques can give you very attractive results.

Both plastics (acrylic and acetal) can be effectively mounted flush on the electronics enclosure surfaces. This is achieved by carefully milling the edges of the plastic in order to create a boss that matches the cutout of the enclosure face. Fastening is done through the threaded fasteners or structural tapes.

The Use of  Acrylic in Your Enclosure:

Most of the design engineers utilize acrylic for its good transparency, however they are also using the same material for other purposes such as electrical insulation or RF transparency.  Most often that not, they use to to generate viewing windows for the enclosure and also to get certain aesthetical goals. For example, Linus Sebastian, one of YouTube’s most popular technology reviewers wants a window for his custom desktop electrical box. So he opted to use an optically clear cast acrylic sheet that has 7/32” in thickness (not stocked), 15” x 15.5”and bolted on over studs.

Tips and Guidelines in Designing Electronics Enclosure that Can Protect Your Equipment from Solid or Water Ingress

Frances Bennett Engineering Blog, Materials of Enclosures, Steel enclosures , , , ,
Electrical Enclosure, Electronics Enclosure, Electrical Boxes, Solid Ingress, Water Ingress,

In this article, we will be sharing some of the best practices and experience of design engineers in the enclosure industry. These are the practical tips and knowledge about building electrical boxes that can fully withstand some of the environmental hazards. Eventually, the issue of whether to use NEMA or IP ratings will come up, however issues arise form this because there is a great confusion about how these things can work.

In this article, we will help companies in giving good direction for design engineers who are still on the process of handling this type of subject. To make things very simple, we are going to limit the discussion in using NEMA however, the principle will be just as same if you are going to use IP standards. Thus, making this article relevant to everyone.

Before starting on any projects, design engineers should be straightforward in pointing their goals and agendas. They should be blatantly clear about what they are really trying to achieve. Whether they are looking for environmental protection or if they are only trying to meet very formal and set guidelines just to achieve a NEMA standard.

There are thousands of custom enclosure being made day by day that has environmental resistance requirements. Most of these electrical boxes that are being made only need the environmental protection. There are customers that will use NEMA guidelines to explain why they need a certain type of protection (such as solid ingress or corrosion protection) but they don’t want to meet all of the NEMA standard.

There are times that we see customer who will try to meet the formal requirements of a NEMA standard. With this in mind, it only means that it needs the necessary testing for it to assess if the enclosure being made is within the NEMA standard. There are enclosure manufacturing companies that does not offer NEMA testing but the customers are in touch with some of the third-party testing facility for their enclosure. They need a formal certification that their enclosure has successfully met the necessary requirements. With this in mind, I have listed below the different classifications for NEMA electronics enclosure.

Guidelines in understanding NEMA Classification

NEMA has been set to promote a standardized quality of electronics enclosure specification for some of the electrical devices. Its primary role is to identify how the electrical box should effectively perform to meet the right classification of NEMA enclosure. In its most basic sense, NEMA enclosure deals with the following:

  1. Protecting personnel from unwanted contact with hazardous internal parts
  2. Protecting equipment housed in the enclosure against hazards that can be present in the environment

However, there is a certain limitation to this. NEMA does not advise how to effectively design and manufacture the electronics enclosure to meet its performance or quality specifications.

There are several NEMA ratings that covers a wide range of uses, protection, and qualities. However in this article we will only deal with the NEMA ratings that are usually used by customers.

NEMA Type 1 –Its primary purpose is to give equipment protection for indoor use and it gives protection for personnel to avoid unauthorized contact with live parts of the equipment. It also gives protection for equipment from solid ingress that can come from floating dust.

NEMA Type 2 –This NEMA enclosure type is used indoors and unlike the NEMA 1 electronics enclosure, it is dip-proof. It has an additional protection for possible water ingress that can occur from splashing or dripping water.

NEMA Type 4, 4X – Both of these ratings are used indoors and outdoors. These two types of enclosure has amazing properties. They are watertight, dust-tight, and it is sleet-resistant. It also offers the protection that both NEMA 1 & 2 offers. It has an additional protection for external ice formation and protection from hose-directed water. The NEMA 4X is a corrosion restant electrical box.

NEMA Type 5 –It offers the protection like the NEMA type 2 enclosure. However, it has additional gaskets that offers above standard ingress protection from settling dust, lint, fibers, and flyings. However, this type of enclosure is mostly used for indoor engineering applications and NEMA 5 enclosure is a dust-tight electrical box.

NEMA Type 6, 6P – This type of electrical box is both used for outdoor and indoor applications. The additional quality that it has it is submersible. NEMA Type 6, 6P offers the same protection as its counterparts (4, 4X) but this electrical enclosure can be submerged in water at limited depth. This is most commonly used in offshore marine applications.

Plastic Electronics Enclosure with IP68 Rating – How does it Perform?

Frances Bennett Engineering Blog, Materials of Enclosures, Steel enclosures , , ,
Electrical Enclosure, Electronics Enclosure, Electrical Boxes, Plastic Enclosure,

Together with the new release of the electronics enclosure today, there are new electronics enclosure that are made with hinges. Some of these are primarily designed to adopt the IP68 ratings. With this in mind, companies are now effectively producing enclosures that are safe for any type of ingress.

In line with this article, we will discuss the well known IP or Ingress Protection ratings. These ratings are different from the NEMA ratings because it is primarily designed and set to tell the customers and help the companies to produce enclosures that can give ingress protection. The two digits in the IP rating determines the protection of enclosure from object or water ingress. Practically, the two digits tells the level of protection the enclosure can give.

To give you the basic idea, the first one determines the level of foreign object ingress protection the enclosure gives and the second one determines the level of water ingress protection.

Refer to the list below of the different levels of protection:

IP First Digit = (Protection level against solid objects)

0 – No available protection

1 – Has Foreign Object Ingress Protection from large objects that is more than 50 mm (akin to a person’s hand)

2 – Has Foreign Object Ingress Protection against medium objects that is more than (akin to a person’s finger)

3 – Has Foreign Object Ingress Protection against small objects that is more than 2.5 mm (akin tools or cables)

4 – Has Foreign Object Ingress Protection against minute objects that is more than 1 mm (akin small wires)

5 – Has Foreign Object Ingress Protection against limited amounts of dust

6 – Has Foreign Object Ingress Total and complete protection from dust

 IP Second Digit = (Protection level against water)

0 – No available protection

1 – Has Foreign Water Ingress Protection against vertically falling drops of water

2 – Has Foreign Water Ingress Protection against direct sprays of water up to 15° from vertical position

3 – Has Foreign Water Ingress Protection against direct sprays of water up to 60° from vertical position

4 – Has Foreign Water Ingress Protection against splashing water coming from all directions

5 – Has Foreign Water Protection against low pressure jets of water from all directions

6 – Has Foreign Water Protection Protection against temporary flooding of water

7 – Has Foreign Water Protection Protection against temporary submersion of enclosure in the water

8 – Has Foreign Water Protection Protection against prolonged submersion in the water

With this in mind, companies are offering different types of enclosure with different types of IP ratings. There are a lot of possible combinations companies can manufacture for the consumers. In case you are using the IP rating to determine the quality of your enclosure, just be specific on your design and tell the manufacturing company about it.

What is a Jackalopee and How Does it Works?

Frances Bennett Engineering Blog, Materials of Enclosures, Steel enclosures , , , ,
Electrical Enclosure, Electronics Enclosure, Electrical Boxes, Jackalopee, Travel Van,

I am in the middle of trying to plan a good vacation trip for my boyfriend and I. Because of the gloomy winter we have been through, I am thinking of some place very tropical. I guess Mexico or the Philippines? I really would love to escape the dreading Ohio weather as the winter has been in my nerves. With this in mind, we would at least try to go on vacation every year.

Each of our travel is by plane because the location would be too very far flung from Ohio. However, there are people who love to travel by road. There are people in the United States who own an RV and they really love to hit the road when they travel.

Because of the increasing industrial growth for RV’s, their continuously increasing weight and size has created a need for a much more powerful and larger car engine to pull them. This specific need has been increasing over the past few years. It has created an ever increasing and emerging trend of companies using commercially retired tractor units to be able to pull the huge RVs.

With this in mind, there are two essential items that is vitally needed to make the RV and tractor combination a good possibility. This can be done via air hitch or an electrical conversion module.

Unfortunately, there are two different industries that practices very unlikely standards that will eventually result to having poor quality and incompatibility issues. This would mean that the equipment is likely to pair with a “rat’s nest” of systematical wiring done by unqualified technicians – and you would not like it.

The company called Szmyt ET Products has identified this need and was able to manufacture a product called the Jackalopee. This easy to install, externally mounted electrical converter can empower any engine to be able to pull off a RV. The product should be protected from water ingress and it needs a good electronics enclosure case that has clear cover.

This will empower the personnel or users to effectively observe the circuit board LED’s to be observed from the outside of the cover. It does not need any additional openings on the box. And thie enclosure allows to remain and stay waterproof.

What is the Best Possible File Formats Engineers Can Use When Designing Custom Plastic Electronics Enclosure?

Frances Bennett Engineering Blog, Materials of Enclosures, Steel enclosures , , ,
Electrical Enclosure, Electronics Enclosure, Electrical Boxes, File Formats,

Currently, I have developed a weekend hobby. I have currently started writing product reviews for a column of our local news website. When I was writing and composing the articles, I have to carefully keep in mind the type of format I am writing the product review in. Whereas, these type of blog articles are really conversational and really informative. The reviews should be written in the third person without being biased about personal opinion and only stating the facts. Both of these styles bring in several benefits, but there is this writing technique in a new website – that is the impersonal reporting. This is considered as the clearest style of writing.

When it comes to being clear and being straight-forward, there are recommended file formats the vector based artwork of the enclosure should be drawn inside their graphics department. There are recommended file types for different elements of the design and the companies are basing their graphics on the file type and style they should be in. This is also crucial because there are certain file sizes that is needed for the printing machine that will eventually result to crisp images and lines. Especially the edges and the lines should be clear – this is why right file type should be utilized. If the plate of the vector drawings does contain some hazy lines the printing will be substandard.

In addition to this, the vector based artwork or drawing can be created using a good variety of different programs. Some of the options includes:

  • Gerber
  • DXF
  • EVA
  • EMF
  • AI
  • CDR
  • WMF
  • VML
  • SVG
  • PGML
  • HVIF

In the industry, there are trusted plastic electronic enclosure manufacturing companies that have earned their customer’s trust by steadily providing a good, sturdy, and very stylish electronics enclosure. Not only that these enclosures are stylish but they are proven to last long in any given project. These companies would take your trust very seriously and this also comes to having a long lasting project. This type of companies takes the trust of the customers very seriously and it also extends its effort just to be able to provide the customization the customers needs and wants. This is also to make sure that the cutouts of the graphics are clean, accurate, and perfectly placed. And that the graphics are crisp and visually pleasing.