Enclosure Profiles (Q37281)

This project is an entry for the MakerBot Giveaway competition announced on April 14th. Enclosure Profiles are a simple way to design and make attractive custom enclosures for electronic and mechanical projects using today's modest resolution fabbers. The concept was inspired by classic pre-blobject radio and electronics enclosure designs like the Tivoli Model One and was originally intended to be used with aluminum extrusions in standard forms that could be cut to length like lumber. It was one of the proposed example design projects of the TMP2 Open Source Everything Project intended to illustrate the possibilities of globally refined open designs. However, the recent advent of personal fabbers like the MakerBot and RebRap offer the possibility of producing these enclosure profiles on-demand, printing them to length. Enclosure Profiles are 2D profile shapes that form the shape of a tubular enclosure finished by front and back faceplates. The profiles feature inner-surface slots or channels for the simple slide-in mounting of circuit boards or mechanical chassis plates and standoffs thus allowing a project assembly to be held together with just the faceplate screws and/or threaded rods. Faceplates are made from any useful flat stock material with openings cut to accommodate any desired controls, switches and buttons, displays, or interface ports. They can surface-mount to the enclosure profile ends or be mounted flush or recessed by routing the profile ends to make the necessary recess. Different perimeter profile shapes add additional features to the enclosure profiles, such as heat sink fins, stand-off legs, bases, or flanges for bolt attachment, and so on. By using stacked combinations of variant profile segments with the same inside profile and base dimensions and held together with threaded rods, it is possible to create more elaborate enclosures with different features. For instance, by combining a plain profile segment with two short segments with leg stand-off ridges one can make a case with four free-standing legs. Conversely, combining a large segment with stand-off ridges with two short plain segments makes a case with overhanging front and back bezels. An infinite variety of enclosures is possible by varying these simple 2D profile outlines with different dimensions, different combinations of interior slots/grooves, and different perimeter features and using them in different stacked combinations. The purpose of this design is to introduce viewers to this simple concept and encourage their own experimentation with different profiles of their own design. This concept will also work with laser/CNC cut flat sheet materials with multiple profile flats cut, stacked, and held together with threaded rods and surface-mount face plates. This approach will not produce a waterproof enclosure but does allow for the use of novel or recycled materials such as cardboard. The profile designs shown are several variants designed around the dimensions of the standard 170mm square Mini-ITX motherboard. This is intended for a fanless low-power PC enclosure with external power supply. Included are faceplate templates for surface-mount and flush/recessed faceplates. This author apologizes for the lack of a 3D view illustrating the profiles in extruded depth but, unfortunately, it was not possible to import these precision Illustrator drawings to SmartSketch for a quick rendering.