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How to design + order plastic enclosures?

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123jack

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I need a plastic enclosure for a hand held meter circuit board/battery.
Something more similar to a TV remote rather than a DVM.

Can anyone suggest the best way to get this done (I've never done anything like this)
I have access to 3DS Max to visualise or presumably create DXF or whatever
but I dont know anything about the materials/ pricing/ manufacturing etc of this
type of thing. (I am UK based if thats helpful in any way)

Is there any low cost software to help maybe?

Any advice on any aspect of this welcome.

Thanks
jack.
 

Thanks for the links.

I know it costs a lot - I'm trying to find out how much and how to do it.

jack
 

I just tooled a custom enloseure for one of the project using China tooling house. The tooling cost is around $1500 USD, the unit cost is very cheap at about $0.5USD. If you just need few enclosures you can get around with few quick mock up which is around $100~$150 each
 

thanks trader thats quite interesting - the china quote seems between 5-10 times cheaper than here in the UK (I've just been quoted 10K GBP for tooling up for a fairly simple enclosure)

I took a look at the new HP 3D printers for prototype work in ABS.
Bureauxs seem able to do quite complex things with that for around 100 GBP
 

Hello!

Another way is to do it yourself.
At work, we do mostly prototypes, and we bought a CNC machine to make our
enclosures by cutting plastic blocks:



Dora.


123jack said:
thanks trader thats quite interesting - the china quote seems between 5-10 times cheaper than here in the UK (I've just been quoted 10K GBP for tooling up for a fairly simple enclosure)

I took a look at the new HP 3D printers for prototype work in ABS.
Bureauxs seem able to do quite complex things with that for around 100 GBP
Click to expand...
 

OK But you provide no information on what CNC machine or the cost.

If you develop say 10 different products and factor in the cost of the CNC
and the maintenance and usage - how much do you spend per prototype ?

The point is all about the cost.

jack
 

If you are going to design the enclosure yourself you'll need a 3D package such as Solidworks or Inventor to do the job properly.
Then the fun starts.
First off I'd look at this site, lots of good basic design guidlines.
For prototype models look at someone like ARRK, there are numerous methods of producing rapid prototypes, and depending on the required use of the prototype will determine the construction method (SLA, SLS, FDM etc).
Of course you'll need a 3D model to get your prototype done.
 

Excelent link marce - exactly what I needed - thank you.

jack
 

Heres a link to two excellent nbooks on fastening tecniques using plastic enclosures. By using snap fits you can achieve decreased assembly times without sacrificing physical integrity.
In fact one of my first designs (you tend to overdesign at first, especially wall thickness) could be launched out of a first floor window and survive! It was slightly overengineered for the job, and almost impossible to dismantle, making repairs a tad difficult.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/search?index=books&linkCode=qs&keywords=1569903883

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Designing-...r_1_10?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1273565153&sr=8-10
 

I took a look at the new HP 3D printers for prototype work in ABS.
Bureauxs seem able to do quite complex things with that for around 100 GBP
 

Hi,
I am using Google Sketchup to design an enclosure. I found this site: matweb.com as a good resource to learn about the materials. For metal enclosures I found this site has some good tutorials Technical Papers relating to custom electronic enclosures. But I am still not sure how can one go about making an enclosure that is a hybrid of metal and plastic. The metal part would help in heat dissipation in some cases. If anybody has more information please share.

Thanks!
 
A bit more info on what your trying to acieve would help, as the possibilities these days are almost endless.
One of the things we use to do at my past firm was take things to bits, to see how they went together. You can learn a lot by doing this. One of the more interesting things to dismantle are childrens toys, quite often a mix of materials (metal and plastic), but also designed to stand up repeated battering. Also cars fixtures and fittings, again often plastic parts fitted to metal base.
 

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