Choosing an enclosure: for 'standard' don't read 'simple'

摘要

Standard enclosures for the electronic and electrical industries are produced in a huge variety of sizes, styles and materials by many specialist manufacturers. The initial choice facing the designer is whether to commission a custom enclosure for the particular project or whether to choose a suitably-sized standard one from a reputable supplier.rnThe main advantages of standard enclosures are that there are no non-recurrent engineering and tooling charges; the majority of manufacturers keep products on the shelf, so the time to market is as low as it can be; the unit costs are attractive and the design has been field proven in many different applications.rnObviously, there may have to be an element of compromise in the mechanical design of the PCB and other components to ensure that they will fit into the enclosure, but, providing the enclosure is selected at an early stage in the design process, this will not generally be a problem. In most cases, the PCB will be of a custom size and shape anyway; it is a lot easier to make the PCB fit the housing than it is to find a slightly larger version of a standard enclosure.