Enclosures

There is wide variety of metal enclosures for sale today. They range from your standard size metallic or polycarbonate enclosures to custom sized and custom materials. Some are used as electrical boxes which provided protection for delicate wiring from the elements.

Others can be used to protect sensitive electrical equipment and your standard laptop computer. Whatever you need an enclosure for, one can most surly be fabricated. When you invest in expensive equipment you should protect it with every means at your disposal. If you bought one of those store made PDA cases and it falls apart, don’t worry a local machine shop will be able to machine a custom one for you.

Enclosures are most commonly found in the electronics industries. A wide variety of material can be used and will depend on the extent of protection required. Plastic and steel are the most widely manufactured enclosures for the electrical aspect. Aluminum and other alloys are fairly easy to work with and create rigid and sometimes air tight protection. Die-cast aluminum enclosures are manufactured using a die and mold press.

The molten aluminum is press in to a chamber where it is then forced into a mold, thus making a molded aluminum casing. The other popular method for creating reliable enclosures uses polycarbonates (plastics). These will most likely be made using the injection mold process.

The material (polycarbonate) is placed in a heating drum where it will be heated until it becomes liquid. It will then be moved, via auger, into a chamber where it will be compressed between a mold and die where it will cool and result in the forming of a casing. When made using the correct materials enclosures can also be flame retardant. Sheet metal casing are used using standard bending and pressing machines. A sheet of the desired metal will be placed inside a press where the desired shape will be cut out, it will then proceed to a bending press where it will bent and folded to make the shape of the casing.

There are an innumerable amount of uses for these types of casings. Some of them are as follows: weather proof cabinets, mounted panels, wall cabinets, equipment control boxes, power supply boxes, access control enclosures and housings. Many casings can be used for noise reduction as well as protection. If there is anything you have that can easily broken, damaged or stolen you should defiantly look into the idea of having custom enclosures made.