How to Make Custom Electronics Enclosures

Nearly every electronic device requires an enclosure to keep its components safe and protected. An electronics enclosure is the hard, durable case you’ll find around most kinds of electronics, from the complex cutting-edge medical technology to the simplest handheld devices like electronic key fobs. 

Sometimes, the off-the-shelf options available for enclosures might not fit the particular needs of your application. In such cases, it’s logical to wonder how to make custom electronics enclosures and whether it’s something you can do in-house. Unfortunately, the process of how to make custom electronics enclosures is one many businesses aren’t equipped for, or the costs of doing so often outweigh the benefits. 

Order Custom Electronic Enclosures to Fit Your Exact Needs

Instead, many businesses choose custom electronics enclosures from Polycase. Our enclosures are designed to meet the highest performance standards while also offering abundant customization options. In this article, we’ll look at the basics of how to make custom electronics enclosures and why it’s often a smart move to allow Polycase to handle enclosure customization for you. 

Understanding How to Make Custom Electronics Enclosures

First, it’s helpful to have a basic idea of how enclosures are made. The manufacturing process varies widely according to the materials used, so let’s look at some of the most common manufacturing processes: 

• Stainless Steel Enclosures: A stainless steel enclosure is made from several plates of stainless steel that are cut, joined and then welded together. Due to the extreme hardness of stainless steel, the welding and cutting processes require specialized tools. 
• Aluminum Enclosures: Aluminum enclosures are usually made either via die casting or extrusion. In the die casting process, the manufacturer injects molten aluminum into a die mold, while in the extrusion process, aluminum is pushed through a die to create long parts that are then cut to size. 
• Polycarbonate Plastic Enclosures: The manufacturing process for polycarbonate enclosures starts by feeding thermoplastic pellets into a heated barrel where they are melted and mixed together.. The plastic mixture is then pushed into a mold using pressurized injection and allowed to cool. 
• ABS Plastic Enclosures: ABS enclosures are manufactured using a similar process to polycarbonate, with an emulsified mixture of plastic components heated and injected into a mold. Since it’s a thermoplastic material, meaning it can be heated and reformed multiple times, ABS is often recycled. 

Now that we’ve got a basic idea of the processes behind enclosure manufacturing, let’s take a look at some important elements of how to make custom electronics enclosures that fit the needs of your application. 

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Factors to Consider When Designing Custom Electronics Enclosures

When creating the specifications for an enclosure that will need customization, you’ll need to make sure to consider all of the relevant factors. These are a few of the most important:

• Enclosure Size: Your electronics enclosure obviously needs to be large enough to comfortably hold all components, but that’s not the whole story. You’ll also need to consider factors, such as whether the distance between components is enough to avoid crosstalk and interference, as well as whether the enclosure provides enough space for device assembly and maintenance. 
• Enclosure Material: Your enclosure should also be made from a material that meets your needs. The enclosure material will affect many of the factors we’ll talk about next, so check out our enclosure material guide to learn more about how to choose the right material for your enclosure. If you’re doing in-house enclosure manufacturing, enclosure material will also be the biggest factor that determines the process and equipment you’ll need.
• NEMA Rating/IP Rating: NEMA ratings and IP ratings are two systems used to assess an enclosure’s protective qualities against factors, such as water ingress and dust ingress. If you don’t know what NEMA or IP rating your device enclosure needs, make sure to read our NEMA ratings guide and IP ratings guide to learn about the fundamentals of these rating systems.
• Ambient Temperature Rating: Your enclosure will need to be designed to withstand ambient temperatures in its operating environment. Make sure your enclosure has a rated operating temperature well within the ambient temperature limits your device will experience.
• Internal Temperature Rating: The heat generated by device components can create real problems for the device’s operation if the enclosure isn’t properly vented and cooled. Read up on important factors like calculating internal temperature rise in enclosures and supply flow rate of small cooling fans and pressure drop characteristics in electronics enclosures. These concepts will help you understand your device’s venting and cooling needs.
• Enclosure Accessories: Many device enclosures will require additional accessories, such as mounting hardware or cable glands, that must be fitted precisely with the enclosure’s cutouts. See our full selection of enclosure accessories to learn about the many accessory options Polycase offers for our electronics enclosures.

Specifying a stock enclosure with custom features in your bill of materials rather than a custom fabricated one can save a substantial amount of time and resources. With a little bit of design flexibility and creative thinking, it’s often possible to find a stock enclosure that can be customized to your needs. But what about custom fabricating enclosures in-house? Next, we’ll talk about why that’s often much harder than you might expect. 

Can I Make My Own Custom Enclosures In-House? 

While it’s possible to create your own custom electronics enclosures in-house, it can be a surprisingly difficult process. If you don’t have access to high quality materials and manufacturing tools, the results may not meet your needs. Let’s quickly look at a few of the reasons many businesses choose to outsource their customized enclosure manufacturing: 

• Capital Investment: First and foremost, materials, such as stainless steel, aluminum and polycarbonate, require sophisticated equipment to manufacture at a high performance standard. Is your business ready to make the investment in, for example, a die casting machine for aluminum enclosures or the specialized equipment needed to weld stainless steel? And if you want to use digital printing or CNC machining on your enclosures, you’ll need to purchase even more equipment or contract your customization jobs out to a contract manufacturer. 
• Process Knowledge: Are your manufacturing and engineering personnel aware of the different tool bit types required for a plastic enclosure and a metal enclosure? What about the specific torque settings and techniques required to drill into these materials without damaging them? These are just a few of the many considerations you’ll have to keep in mind when manufacturing enclosures in-house. 
• Labor Costs: Manufacturing enclosures in-house will often involve diverting labor away from other tasks to work on the process of engineering custom enclosures. Engineering staff may have to work outside their area of expertise, which can lead to employee dissatisfaction, low morale and easily avoidable mistakes.
• Scrap Costs: Even if you’re eventually able to achieve an effective and efficient manufacturing process, it will often require some trial and error to get there. Is your business prepared to absorb the scrap costs of potentially producing a batch of enclosures with defects that make them unusable? 

 Customizing a Polycase Enclosure: The Basics

Polycase offers customized enclosure solutions substantially faster, easier and more cost-effective than having your own electronics enclosure custom fabricated. Our customers can choose from custom CNC machining cutouts and custom full-color digital printing. You’ll find our enclosure customization process outperforms others in key areas, including:

• Lead Time: Unlike some manufacturers who require orders to be placed months in advance, our lead time for customized enclosures is usually just one to three weeks. When you’ve got a time-sensitive project or need to quickly pick up slack from another supplier, Polycase has the fast and responsive service you need. 
• Engineering Support: Anytime you need help in the enclosure customization process, our experts will be happy to guide you. We know our products inside and out, and our customer service professionals are trained to help customers navigate the customization process. 
• Wide Selection: Polycase’s enclosure selection includes a large range of enclosure models suitable for many different applications. Instead of the expensive and complex process of custom fabricating each enclosure, we offer a huge selection of prefabricated enclosures our customers can tailor to their own needs using our powerful and flexible customization options. 

So, how does the process of customizing a Polycase enclosure work in practice? To find out, let’s examine the key points of each technology Polycase uses to create high performance customized enclosures for our customers. 

Custom CNC Machined Enclosures from Polycase

CNC machining is a technique used to create precise cutouts in a material using a computer-guided laser. This technique is the industry standard for enclosure machining because of the extreme precision of its laser cutting and its ability to nearly eliminate human error from the machining process when done correctly. 

The advantages of Polycase’s CNC machining process include:

• Precise Cuts: Our CNC machining produces incredibly precise cuts, with a tolerance of only +/-.005”. That means our customers can be confident that they’ll receive an enclosure matching their specs exactly.
• Low Scrap: High precision CNC machining wastes very little material and has extremely low error rates, which means that scrap costs for our customization processes are typically very low as well. 
• Advanced Capabilities: Polycase’s machining capabilities include a full array of options, from standard cuts to counterbored and threaded holes. We can create almost any kind of cut, and our technical support services are always happy to help our customers decide how to most effectively execute the cuts they need. 

Custom Digital Printing on Enclosures from Polycase

Many electronic devices need images or text printed on them to provide directions, safety warnings or branding. Manufacturers have traditionally used a variety of methods to accomplish this, including adhesive labels. 

Polycase offers our customers something much better. We use a full color digital printing process that has many distinct advantages over other types of printing for electronics enclosures:

• No Labels: Labels on enclosures often produce disappointing results, such as misalignment or bubbling. Polycase’s custom digital printing prints your image directly onto the enclosure for a crisp, clean image every time. Direct digital printing also eliminates the need for laborious hand application many manufacturers encounter with labels. 
• Durable Printing: When images and text scratch off from an enclosure, it can be anything from an annoyance (losing your brand logo) to a serious hazard (losing critical safety warnings and operating instructions). Polycase uses durable, UV-resistant inks to prevent fading and scratching, providing an image capable of retaining its quality indefinitely. 
• High Quality: Our digital printing produces bright, high definition images that reallypop. They stand out in the crowded visual field of many workplaces, which is crucial for devices that need safety warnings or other important information printed on them. 

How to Order Customized Electronics Enclosures from Polycase

All of the enclosure customization options in the world don’t mean much if they’re not easy to use and understand. That’s why Polycase has streamlined our enclosure customization process to provide a simple way to get your enclosure customized. 

The process for ordering a customized enclosure works like this:

1. Browse our full selection of electronics enclosures and find the enclosure right for your application. 
2. Use our instant quote tool to select the model you need and provide basic specifications to obtain your quote. 
3. Upload a drawing of the cuts or printing you need. 

• • For CNC machining, we can accept a wide variety of formats including AutoCAD drawings. See our full list of acceptable printing and machining formats for more information.
  • For digital printing, we require vector based artwork designed using the CMYK color space. Acceptable formats include .pdf or .eps files created using programs such as Adobe Illustrator or Corel Draw. We can also capture artwork from an AutoCAD drawing or even recreate a simple sketch so long as it includes appropriate instructions. 

4. Place your order and we’ll ship your customized enclosures right to your doorstep. 

Polycase offers the easiest, fastest and most cost-effective path to customized electronics enclosures. We’ll be happy to help you get started today. Just request a customized enclosure quote using our easy online form, or call us at 1-800-248-1233 to speak with our enclosure experts. 

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