Enclosures
Ask the manufacturer to configure enclosures - it makes perfect sense
As Russell Irvine of Hammond Electronics explains, standard enclosures have a number of attractive characteristics. However, the fact that they are ‘standard’ means that they may have to be modified to meet the individual requirements of a specific project
T
he main advantages of standard enclosures are that there are no up- front non-recurrent design, engineering and tooling charges - products are on the shelf ready for immediate delivery, so the time to market is as low as possible, the unit costs are attractive and the design will have been field proven in many different applications. Compared with an application specific custom enclosure, designed specifically for the project, standard products are immediately available and, certainly in volumes up to the low thousands, are
extremely cost effective. However, standard products are exactly that - standard. To meet the needs of a specific project, they will typically have to be machined with suitable apertures to accept switches, displays, I/O connectors, keyboards and other components. They will probably need to be printed with legends and logos and they may have to be finished in a non- standard colour to meet corporate or product branding requirements.
Decisions decisions To modify a standard enclosure to meet
the requirements of a project, the purchaser has three choices. 1. Purchase standard
products, either directly from the manufacturer or through distribution, and then modify them as required in-house. However, many electronic OEMs may not have the plant, equipment, expertise or interest in undertaking machining and painting procedures in their own premises. If there is in- house capability, to modify the housing as a part of the overall assembly process could be the best way to proceed. However, more standard units than are actually required will have to be purchased to allow for set-up procedures and wastage. 2. Buy standard products and outsource the modification processes to external
contractors. In this scenario, there are the additional costs, time penalties and logistics complications associated with managing the process of sub-contracting, often to multiple suppliers, potentially further increasing the costs as each process will require extra units to allow for first-offs and set-up wastage.
34 July/August 2015
Components in Electronics
www.cieonline.co.uk
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