Saturday 30 July 2016

My journey in desiging a Laser cut Electronics enclosure

Over the last few weeks, I had been busy in my spare time trying to look for a pre-fabricated electronics enclosure for my CNC machine. After extensively looking around my inner DIY gut feelings pushed me towards the custom route again. After looking around the internet, I was impressed by the various CNC electronics enclosures that other folks around the world were making to house the electronics.

I was at a stage where all the required electronics components I required were in my possession and I decided to take on a new adventure of designing a laser cut acrylic enclosure.

I am quite comfortable using FreeCAD for my 3d printing design work but the software lacked the ability to make tabbed boxes. I did find a few options via FreeCAD and Inkscape but it was going to be very very hectic making things work especially with all the different formats such as .SVG, DXF, etc.

I stumbled across a website called www.makercase.com . It has a nice and simple online interface where you can with a few basic inputs quickly design a tabbed box and export an .SVG file with the design. If you want a quick tutorial on MakerCase.com you should have a quick look at this youtube tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptcxaANWrRM

Below is a snap shop of the MakerCase.com website:

After designing the basic tabbed enclosure, I exported the .SVG file and started working in FreeCAD.

Below is an example of the MakerCase exported .SVG file imported in FreeCAD:

At this stage I started carefully editing the design in FreeCAD to add the necessary holes to house the various electronic components.

Below is the final design in FreeCAD:

The design work in FreeCAD was well over a couple of hours but its a tough argument over using expensive CAD applications as both MakerCase and FreeCAD are free.

Then came the next phase i.e. to search of a company than can laser cut the acrylic pieces for me, I had quotes that were all over the place and finally found a reasonable company called Lasertec Sdn. Bhd. They offered laser cutting in acrylic, wood and aluminium and they cater for small or large quantities. As such there is no limit on size and quantity while dealing with Lasertec but the terms are basically Cash/Bank Transfer and self collection. You can even provide your own material and they will just charge you the laser cutting cost but I would advise you do some research before you decide to get your own material as not all acrylic or wood will give good results during laser cutting.

Lasertech has a website where you can see a quick description of their products and services: www.lasertec.com.my . After a few emails and sending them the CAD design in .DXF format, they gave me a quote of RM 106 (inclusive of GST) for cutting the design in 3mm Acrylic. After making payment to them via Online bank transfer my laser cut pieces were ready for pickup next day.

Below is a quick picture using my phone showing the final laser cut acrylic pieces:

The complete details for Lasertec are below:
Name: LASERTEC SDN. BHD.
Address: No. 2E, Jalan Wangsa Utama, Taman Wangsa Permai 52100 Kepong, Kuala Lumpur
Telephone: +603 2632 2045
Email: sales@lasertec.com.my
Website: www.lasertec.com.my

In the end I am very satisfied with the result. The laser cut pieces are perfect in terms of dimensions apart from a few burns which is a signature of laser cutting acrylic or wood. It saves you a lot of time hacking plastic of metal electronics project boxes to house the various components.

I hope anyone with a desire or need to design an electronics project enclosure will find this post useful.

Tuesday 12 July 2016

Electronic Supply Source Rewiew

Today I went back to Jalan Pasar to look for some electronic components for my cnc electronics enclosure and I happened to go back to a very old electronics and pcb component supplier: Maplin Electronics. 

The shop details are:

Shop: Maplin Electronics SDN BHD
Address: No. 4, Jalan Landak, Off Jalan Pasar, Pudu, 55100 Kuala Lumpur.
Telephone: 03-92224496


This is a very humble shop that sells several electronic IC's, resistors, capacitors, raw pcb boards, electronic enclosures (plastic/metal), power switches, AC fans (along with fan grills), all kinds of connectors including aircraft type round connectors, DC stepping power supplies, soldering equipment, etc.

Although shopping online for electronic components might be a but cheaper but if you wish to look for a physical location where you can see/touch the components then Maplin is a good place to start and belive me you will not regret visiting this shop.

One other thing I must advise is that the displayed price or quoted price is not the  final price. You can ask for a decent 10-20% discount and they will be willing to entertain you and negotiate a little if you look like a serious buyer.

The staff is very helpful and the environment is quite pleasant and peaceful compared to the noisy shops on main Jalan Pasar who only seem to focus on lighting and musical components.

Note: The area is normally congested with traffic and parking your vehicle may become an adventure you may not be prepared to encounter.