electronics enclosure

Customization of Electronics Enclosure: Machining Seems Like a Scrapbooking Method

Frances Bennett Default , ,

My boyfriend and I are always making sure that we celebrate anniversaries in the best & most fashionable way, with that in mind, it is our anniversary next week. For this year’s celebration, I tried putting together all our memorabilia in a scrapbook for our moments last year. This is the biggest dates that we celebrate yearly and for this year we went to a steakhouse. It is one of those places that they regularly print their menu in a daily basis.

With this in mind, I was able to keep our menu and I used the last year’s menu for our yearly scrapbooking. I cut out the items that we ordered from the menu. I have to glue for each of the description on a very fancy scrapbook paper. This might sound a lot of work, but it is a nice keep sake. However, getting each of the proper descriptions on a proper line up was very frustrating. Especially if each one of of the descriptions came in a different size.

This is like having the different cutouts machined differently on the base to effectively cover on the plastic electronics enclosure. Several companies have already tried to machine the enclosure in house. Together with the CNC machining process, there will be precised cutouts one each of the component (example: the base and cover) and in theory, they should be able to properly line up. However, if just one piece of a certain product is just even a couple of millimeters off, a design engineer will not be able to line up the holes especially if the enclosure is already assembled.

Your electronics equipment will not properly fit inside the enclosure, and also, the entire piece will be totally discarded. Without having the proper electronics equipment, the attempt to properly machine these enclosures and combine them with one complete unit can cause an unexpected slippage and compression. Which in return, would also cause several holes to not line up effectively. Now, this should take into account that there are companies that offers CNC machining not just a drill press. Drill Press will always have the tendency to produce very uneven holes.

However, there are companies that utilizes advanced machining techniques in order to produce the right product specific guides that allows them to properly machine an enclosure as one entire unit. Ensuring that the placement of the equipment inside the enclosure are of the same size and measurement. Also, this is not the only most precise method of machining that is widely available. This is also the most efficient and cost effective method. This is the very reason why companies are able to pass along the cost savings to its customers because of the low cost.

What Should be the Characters of the Ink that will be Used to Print on Plastic Electronics Enclosure?

Frances Bennett Engineering Blog, Materials of Enclosures , ,

Just recently, my boyfriend and I just spent a very long weekend to attend a out-of-town wedding. The family of my friend and our friends came over from all over the country just to attend her wedding. There were even English guests all the way from United Kingdom. This is the true testament that the wonderful couple are now finally getting married. People have spent time, money, and the effort just to be there for the celebration.

Before the wedding which was scheduled on a Sunday, there was a mandatory practice the Friday before for the wedding rehearsal. The amazing ceremony will be held at a riverbank park with the reasonable outdoor space reception just for the family. Sunday is a casual celebration and when Monday comes, this is going to be the celebration for the people who was not able to come to the wedding last Sunday. There were handmade decorations and pretty favors, the family style dining was good. There was good bear and the eclectic mix of music. Some guests might question the rustic appearance but our entire weekend was perfectly amazing especially for the happy couple.

With this in mind, knowing the characteristics are very helpful. Not only when working with other personalities from other people, but also this is very vital when dealing with certain chemical properties. Such as ink used for printing on enclosures. This is the type of ink used to print on pad for electronic enclosures. The characteristics does not only exhibit what the product is, but also what the material can be resisted.  

There are numerous characteristics that are necessary to have the permanent ink to be just like that: permanent. For example, if the customer wants the ink to be totally unaffected even if the enclosure is stacked on top of each other. Now, the stacked enclosures will not be damaged even if it is shipped because the right ink is used for the printing of the enclosure.

Or you can just imagine that there was a customer that wants to place something on top of the enclosure, if the ink was used was not the right one, there is a possibility that the graphics will be damaged. The abrasion resistance only means that the ink will not we wear in a way that it is completely gone by means of friction.

Over the course of several years with this type of experience, there are blog posts that are going to be explored using the different types of ink resistance that will be offered. Just feel free to comment about the characteristics or types of resistance you are looking for with your ink.

What is the Relationship of Relative Thermal Index to Electronics Enclosure?

Frances Bennett Engineering Blog, Steel enclosures , ,

I am not a very good driver when it comes to freeway. I usually drive a certain patch of freeway on my way to work. Majority of the time I believe there is a cop waiting for me holding a radar gun that points to the traffic. I guess most of us know that there is a high chance that the cop is there on his post every time we drive past. Still my fellow drivers just keep on slamming on their breaks when they spot the cops. But in line with this, we all push the different limits of what we know what’s right or what should we do or what we should not. But still we get away with the things that we should not be doing. When something like this happens, we quickly learn not to repeat the same mistakes again right?

With this in mind, I would like to prevent you from learning this lesson in the hard way. Plastic boxes also have limitations too – in terms of temperature. Some of the enclosure plastic materials tends to have a higher temperature rating compared to others. Regardless of what the rating is. Once the temperature already reached the required temperature, the engineer is already risking deformation and loss of shape.

What is RTI or Relative Thermal Index?

Let us define what RTI is. It is formerly known as CUTR – or Continuous Use Temperature Rating. This is the highest limit of service temperature, where the critical properties of the material should remain inside the acceptable limits. There are about 50% after 10 cycles, and this is according to the UL testing.

With this in mind, RTI is the external indicator of the material’s innate properties. However, there is a limitation to this. RTI does not consider some of the specific application factors such as the stresses that are inherently molded and mixed into a part before the external load is going to be applied. Including in this is chemical exposure, part thickness, etc. The only most reliable method in predicting part performance is to have the prototype part be subjected into a test under some actual conditions.

There are three independent RTI ratings that can help us with this:

  1. The electrical measures effectively measure dielectric strength
  2. The mechanical part has an impact with measurement of tensile impact strength
  3. The mechanical part that exists without impact measures the tensile strength

For other enclosure manufacturing companies, the standard flame-retardant ABS or the RTI temperature is up to 80 degrees. However, just like my fellow drivers on the freeway, they can only drive up to 10 miles over the limit. It is then most possibly safer in driving at a slower rate than that.

What is the Right Electronics Enclosure for Your Company Processes?

Frances Bennett Engineering Blog, Steel enclosures , ,
Company Processes, electronics enclosure, What is the Right Electronics Enclosure for Your Company Processes?

Aside from the need in determining the right size of the enclosure for the equipment or component, it will house, the style and type should be greatly considered. As a shoe rack, it is not enough that the user knows how many shoes it can fit, but what style the user is looking for. The style can also be dependent on where the shoe rack will be placed. This is also the same in selecting an enclosure. The environment can also determine which style the company should go for.

In this article, we will discuss the numerous possibilities a plastic enclosure can have in terms of customizing its style. Enclosure customization really brings a lot of benefits because it can be tailor-fitted to the need of the company.

There are a handful of possible ways companies can customize their enclosure.

If a company need mounting flanges or creating a hand-held device, they should contact directly the manufacturer to determine the possible ways to easily customize a plastic enclosure for them. This solution also applies if the company needs a gasket type of NEMA enclosure to provide protection equivalent to a certain level of NEMA standard such as; NEMA 4X, NEMA 6P to specify the category of the particular enclosure; rainproof, weatherproof or waterproof. The simplest way to do this is to look up if the company provides an available product brochure online.

If the company is already familiar with the product line the manufacturer is offering, it is easier to tell what the need. Usually, companies display their product line on their website so that the customers can easily tell which products they possibly need and if there are customization needs that should be done.

Also, some enclosure manufacturing companies offer to search by the size of the enclosure. This can be shown most of the time at the top-middle page of the website. This is helpful because the searches can be narrowed down by length and width. If a website is efficiently designed and have this feature, the buying company can save a great amount of time because they will be presented a list of the products based on their custom search.

Even if the information is readily available online, the buying company should always ask the customer support for the information on their enclosure. Keep in mind that no matter how informative a website can be, it pays to directly ask the company about the products and customization services that they offer. Not all companies are the same. Usually, you can tell if a company is easy to transact with if they have good customer support.

Just make sure that before selecting or inquiring the enclosure that you need, on your end you should have the valuable details already laid out. Including the customization needs, the size of your equipment or component, and what type of enclosure your company is looking for. Work directly with a design engineer so that the company can choose wisely which enclosure to buy for their company project. In taking the time to consider which enclosure do they need will help them save a lot of money and effort in investing in the wrong enclosure.

Different Alternative Ways to Improve Enclosure’s Internal Ribbing to Achieving Identical Strength and Increased Space Inside the Enclosure

Frances Bennett Engineering Blog , , ,

Several enclosure manufacturing companies utilizes the internal ribbing in making their electronic enclosures to make it extra rigidity and to also make it more durable. Design engineer might take this approach as a logical strategy but the addition of internal ribbing might bring some complications on the electronic enclosure. Given its ability to give strength, it can hinder the flexibility of the design and it can take up internal space in the enclosure. Sure, this strategy also gives some cons and disadvantages.

For this very reason, some of the electronic enclosure manufacturers chose to have their standard moles to not allow provisions for any types of internal ribbing. If industrial companies needing electronic enclosure has a need for high-strength requirements for their process applications that posses high-impact use, some of the manufacturers that does not want internal ribbing offers wide range of design features that can satisfy this need. This includes options for wall thickness that plastic materials, ABS NORYL, nylon and polycarbonate materials for enclosure provides. These companies can give the advantage of an internal ribbing without the additional bulk inside the internal enclosure space.

Aside from the bulky feature and possibility of less space, there is also one major disadvantage to internal ribbing. Some of the plastic enclosure are required to have custom holes and cutouts for cable glands. When an internal ribbing is installed inside the enclosure, it might prevent the cable glands to go inside the enclosure and it might obstruct the holes. Milling cutouts or holes on the internal ribbing is complicated to do and it is not cost efficient, to be honest. In addition to this, the internal ribs can greatly reduce the amount of space that is available inside the enclosures and it can limit the space provision of the components that can be placed inside the electronic enclosure.

With this in mind, enclosure manufacturing companies offers some best design alternatives. The design engineers can add exceptional strength to the enclosure by redesigning the overall shape of the structure of the enclosure. Given the careful calculation of the design, given with proper analysis and testing, some of the manufacturers of enclosure can give the same strength an internal ribbing can give inside the enclosure.

For some of the outdoor applications that require high strength and impact resistance for electronic enclosures, manufacturers can also offer industrial or production companies an increased wall thickness for electronic enclosures. The enclosure boxes that are specifically designed to have this type of strength and impact resistance can have walls up to 25% thicker. Majority of the NEMA rated enclosures are designed with increased wall thickness.