Standard becomes custom-made ENCLOSURES
Increasing demand for cost-effective and variable enclosures T
he high demands that go hand in hand with advancing miniaturisation place special requirements on enclosure technology. Users and customers alike are mostly looking for customised, variable enclosure solutions that are available at short notice and at a low cost. This presents your partners in electronic packaging with a number of challenges.
Often, an enclosure for an embedded application needs to be customised and mass-produced, even for small and medium quantities, while being as cost-sensitive as possible. Long development times and design studies are also not part of the concept in terms of optimised time to market. When it comes to individual and custom-made enclosures, system specialists rely on variable enclosure concepts.
These enclosures were developed with the key aspect of a highly flexible platform for a wide range of applications, from high-performance embedded computer systems to measuring and testing devices for industrial production environments, through to HMI solutions with small-format computers into which displays are integrated. In order to serve these different areas as effectively as possible, we deliberately do not rely on ready-made ‘off-the-shelf’ enclosures to which the user has to adapt his electronics. Instead, the customer can use a ‘customise only’ strategy to put together a custom housing based on individual components that can be modified, depending on the respective requirements.
Standard becomes corporate design
The aim of the developers was to enable a high degree of modifiability. However, the number of basic components was to be kept as low as possible so that specific adaptations could be implemented as easily as possible. The basis of the embedded housing therefore consists of a base plate, four design corner elements and a cover. These elements can be processed in different formats.
There is also a choice of materials for the housing or base plate, and all individual parts can be matched to different dimensions. Variable dimensions and freely selectable interfaces allow maximum freedom of design and no restrictions when
The variable EmbedTEC enclosures with a needs-based development platform are primarily designed for applications in the embedded computing and HMI sector. They are also available as SFF (Small Form Factor) and eNUC variants for ‘small’ form factors.
The FrameTEC desktop enclosure from POLYRACK, which won the iF Award in 2023, can be customised in a variety of dimensions and design options
The surface of the EmbedTEC enclosures is also available powder-coated on request.
selecting the electronics or components. The base plate and corner elements are available in aluminium, for example, with a powder-coated or anodised/chromated surface. For the cover, there is a choice between stainless steel or sheet steel. The available materials were chosen deliberately as they are often used in industrial environments due to their conductivity and corrosion protection. Individually adaptable EMC sealing material allows increased MV criteria to be met, which also increases the IP protection. Depending on the version, this corresponds to protection class IP in accordance with IEC 60529 and can be upgraded as required. Fanless computer systems can be implemented by connecting heat-generating components to an optional heat sink on the cover. In this way, more can be achieved with simple and cost-effective means and the individual conditions of the application are
28 JUNE 2024 | ELECTRONICS FOR ENGINEERS
cleverly utilised, for example with cooling and ESD protection.
In the best-case scenario, customers should comment on the areas of application as early as possible, ideally in the initial design draft. This allows economic aspects such as sales and service costs and the targeted unit price to be better taken into account. Further personalisation options in terms of appearance, colouring or printing, perhaps to implement the corporate design, are applied thanks to a wide range of in-house technologies. When designing the embedded housing, innovative technologies can be used to generate a customer-specific, recognisable product from a standard component that is ideally adapted to the respective requirements. This is where the exemplary vertical integration of mechanical production, system technology and electronics, plastics technology and surface treatment come into its own. For customers, this means maximum relief and maximum planning reliability. Maximilian Schober, VP Sales Germany & Marketing, POLYRACK TECH-GROUP
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