Electronics Enclosure/Front panel Design Software +tips

Hello All,

I'm an electrical engineer, trying for the first time to build a hobby project
that might turn into a small to medium volume product. I have no idea
in mechanical engineering ...

I'll trying to find an enclosure for my product but keep running into considerable
difficulties ... My enclosure should be about 2U (3.5inch) high, about half-rack (10 inch or so), and depth something like 8 inch.

Can anyone recommend and easy to learn CAD software for enclosure and
front panel design? I've seen protocase's software but not sure it exports
something that I can send to manufacturers in China if I so choose.

I've tried taking standard 2U half-width rack but they cost allot (around 80USD)
at digikey, plus the custom front and end panels, might cost more than
the end customer would want to pay. The front and end panels should
have many holes cut out into them to accommodate upto 16 TRS stereo jacks
in the in the back panel, and many more in the front panel.

How much should such an enclosure cost? build using something simple, painted
white, but reasonbly good looking and reliable/durable? it's a desktop
instrument, so does not have to meet very harsh conditions....

Many thanks in advance !!

Hello bt36,

I've been working in the electronics industries for quite a few years. A suggestion: it might be easier to find an enclosure and just customize it to your needs. An internet search for "electronic enclosure" companies could offer you quite a few domestic companies. Building a custom mold is often expensive and time consuming. While you may find mold prices are lower in China you then have to factor in the cost of freight to ship the boxes to you. Just a thought.

Polycase case offers both CNC machining and printing on their enclosures, and there's no minimum to purchase. Check it out here: https://www.polycase.com/article/customize-enclosures.html

Ive been designing both mechanical enclosures and electronics for quite some time now and have to say the easiest mechanical tool I have used is Solidworks for my enclosures. I am not sure if it would be feasable for you to purchase this tool for a sinlge project. If you were to design enclosure using this tool and sent out to a sheet metal fabrication house it would probably cost 30 to 50 bucks tops for prototype. mass produced much less. Regardless any tool you use that can output either a STEP, ACIS, or DXF format should put you in pretty good shape. There are many other types of outputs but the above mentioned are pretty common. If you have a manufacturer that you can talk to you might want to ask them what type of CAD format they would like to have.

Eda

I am looking for a similar experience. I saw Google Sketchup. This is a free 3D cad software only limitation is that it cannot export to any of the formats edaedaeda mentioned above (at least the free version). Are there any other free tools for this?
Also is there any introductory material that can be referred to decide which materials should be used and to give an idea on the cost vs features tradeoffs of materials?

I've used Front Panel Express with good results

https://www.frontpanelexpress.com

They have enclosure templates, too (haven't used them myself).

You can purchase a DXF export tool from them to export your designs.

Hi Everybody,

thanks for your replies really helpful

edaedaeda - I think I'll give SolidWork a look ... and thanks for the pricing info ...
really encouraging - didn't know it costs so little, this is really affordable for me.

Will keep you guys posted.

I know several people who have used SolidWorks successfully. There are even a couple of add-ins to help with the eletromagnetic simulation of the design, if need be, at emworks.com.

Cheers.

Thanks mate

I'm afraid EMI analysis is out of my scope.

The enclosure design is in itself daunting enough for me as a beginner, in fact, given that I'm doing everything else in the project by myself, I think I'll leave the enclosure
design to someone else (not sure how much it's going to cost though, might
revert my decision).

But thanks again for the tip, emworks looks cool