Hi I Just wanted to do a little video because I just received a whole bunch of these uh, extruded aluminium enclosures from uh, a company in China on um AliExpress website and these things are ridiculously cheap these days. I mean ordinarily these type of uh, extruded aluminium enclosures like this? Really very useful for all sorts of uh, different types of projects, but usually they are quite expensive. You buy them on Digi key or you buy them locally. Here in Australia they can be, you know, 10, 20 or more dollars, um each.

Which is probably okay if you want to do a oneoff project. but if you're designing uh, a project you want to take into production. For example, like my uh Micro Supply which I am thinking about using uh, this particular one here for the micro Supply Now actually, now that I uh, play around with it, it's quite nice, but uh, yeah, use. Usually these things are quite expensive, but there's tons of companies now in China which are manufacturing these extruded aluminium cases and if you order like a hundred of them, they'll even custom, uh, machine drill them and everything like that.

like the front uh plates they usually supplied with metal front plates like this, but uh, there's alternatives to that which I'll get into and uh, I really like these and they're dirt cheap. I mean this one was the most expensive out of all these, even this thick one, this thick one was only like $4 or $380 or something like that. this one was $560 or something. and uh yes, I did pay a little bit more to uh, get them uh Express shipped here I Didn't want the slowboat from China but anyway, um, these are you know, like that was like this little tiny one here which is really nice which is not a two-part enclosure like uh, these ones like all the other ones here and this was only like just over $3 or something like that.

Just absolutely crazy prices and they're reasonably good quality and you can, uh, get them supplied like if you like this particular size uh and shape one for example, you can actually specify it to have it black, anodized, coated or you know, any s of sort of thing. And generally you don't need large quantities like as I said, like a 100 which uh, just to get these custom machined or something like that. So really good. and uh, these aren't I Don't believe these are any standard sizes so they're not like a uh, like a Hammond case equivalent or something like that.

You can actually get those, but these are their own Uh custom sizes which of course has its pros and cons. The uh pros of course is that you get the exact size case that you actually want uh for your particular project so it just fits precisely. Uh, the disadvantage of course is that well, there's no there might not be a second source for it like readily Ava ailable off the shelf if you get sort of into Supply troubles or something like that, but you can always approach another company with the drawing for this. They always provide drawings on their uh, on their shops and uh, you can just get somebody else to manufacture it for you if that company ever went uh, out of business for example.

But yeah, these are quite nice. and uh, let's take a look at this particular one. for example, which I uh, am thinking about using for my micro supply project Now this one is black ardized and it comes with these uh, nice aluminium end panels like that and a whole bunch of screws they didn't give, just give me exact number. They got me a whole bag of screws to go along with this and I like these two-part cases.

Uh, for certain types of projects. Why? Because you can still keep the front panel screwed on like these two bottom screws down here regardless whether or not it's an aluminium front panel or it's a PCB front panel as I'll as I'll uh, discuss, you can keep those screwed in there so you can keep every everything in place and still access your circuitry down but there by just unscrewing those top two stop. uh, two top screws on there and front and back and your thing just lifts off like that. So I find those better or they can be more versatile than these.

uh, fully extruded ones. I mean these are very nice too. The advantage of these is that they're more, uh, rugged. Of course, because they're not a two-part uh case, they are fully extruded like that in just one piece, so you know this is actually a quite nice one.

So I've got another little project in mind for this smaller case, but this one. I'm looking at I Really like this and uh, the it really. They are machined quite well and you know they um, sort of slide and hold in place like that so the fit is absolutely incredible. I Just love it.

And we have very nice tap machine holes on the end of these so you can just use external uh cap screws or something like that if you wanted to make it really look nice. like one of those colored aluminium uh cap head screws that really finish off a project quite nicely. And of course you got uh PCB mounting slots down in here where you board can just slide in of course, top and bottom in this case so you can. This is a completely symmetrical uh case.

There's I mean this one has nice little ridges top and bottom like that. so this is a completely symmetrical case. Doesn't matter around which way it goes. Um, some others aren't quite the same as that.

Uh, but you know that can be handy now. One really good aspect of this case. if you have a look at this To220 package in here, look it. basically.

uh, just wedges between the bottom of the case and the top of the PCB there with just enough room to spare for a seal pad for, uh, insulation on that thing. What does that mean? Well, it means you can use to2 220 packages like this and just wedge them on the bottom of the board and use the case itself as a heat sink. and that's really quite useful. So all you got to do is bend your leads up in the opposite direction.

like that, sticking straight up, stick them through your board and Bobs your uncle, the case becomes your heat sink. Although these flat cases, although they do look big and they're whole, you know, big chunk of aluminium, they're not terribly efficient. Uh, heat sink heat sinks cuz they're not finned. They don't actually have a great surface area near the actual device itself, so sometimes it might actually be easier to, uh or or more efficient to actually put your board in here.

And if you've got room, I mean there's room in there for a 1in one of those uh, standard 1in tall uh heat sinks so you could whack in there we go. There's just enough room for a 1-in tall heat sink in that no problem at all. and that might be more efficient than actually using the case itself. And uh, you know, trying to Anchor it down because if you're going to screw it down as well to get the best efficiency, then you're going to have, of course, have the screw hole uh coming out the bottom and then you, well, you're probably going to put rubber feet on these things anyway.

So that's not a huge drama and you could have a, um, a counter sunk uh, screw on there of course, so you know, but still, eh. Pros and cons both ways there. and of course that's not the same for all cases. This one, you know it might be by designer.

It might be just pot luck on that black anodized one. but this smaller case for example H Look, you can't really take advantage of that because there's too much gap between that to220 and any board that you insert in there like that. So eh, that's just not going to work. So with a case like this, if you did decide that you wanted to mount like a 1in tall heat sink inside there with nice uh, fins and everything else, you could actually do that.

And of course, you can freestand your to 220 on the board. The good thing about that is you don't have to worry about Insulation at all because the uh heat sink. if we used a 1 in W in there, there is significant gap between the top of the case that they're not going to uh touch. So uh, really, you wouldn't need to isolate that To220 device at all if you had.

you know, a power device or a regulator in there or something like that and you didn't want the case to be. Well, you wanted the case to be electrically isolated from the device. That's just one way to do it. Otherwise, if you do take advantage of this thing going down there and it is advantage in certain circumstances, use the case as a heat sink.

Then of course you either have it electrically connected to the tab of the device or you have to uh, insulate the thing with a um like a seal pad type washer or a mic washer and also a uh uh, nylon, uh insert for the screw as well. By the way, if you're wondering about the dimensions of this thing, it's about 88 wide by about about 110 Deep by about 37 or 38 mm. uh, high like that. So nice.

Compact little case. This one and the other good thing about this case is that yes, it is long enough to mount the 18650 battery in there. Be careful with these aluminum cases, you don't short it out. I've put some electrical tape over the back of those things and uh yeah, it can fit in there quite nicely.

It can even just fit in uh, ways like that if you want it to. No problem whatsoever. So there's mounting advantages you can mount in the middle, off to the side like that, or even Crossways Very nice. It's almost a perfect size case.

You couldn't ask for anything better. But a problem of course with such a compact case is how do you get a user interface onto the front panel now? Um, as I said a front panel wise of course it comes with a nice metal one like this and yeah, you can get them if you order to say 100. You can get them to custom uh, machine out holes in the panels and things like that and that's okay. But really, I'm a huge fan of uh, front panel Pcbs as you no doubt aware.

so for my projects I'd be very tempted just to cut out a PCB get a PCB and mount it on the front because you can just get made to the exact size. you can get the Uh edges rounded off like this if it's fully routed around the Um outside edge of the board. Very clean finish and you can put some nice cap head screws in there different color aluminium ones. and of course Pcbs come in many different uh solder mask colors so you can make it look really good.

So I would have something like that on there. And of course there's the it's just high enough for two uh binding post terminals with uh, standard spacing like that so that's really good so I can mount it on there. Then you can even have electrical connection of course like I do with the microcurrent electrical connection through to those and well, you can either then wire that off to the main board. or you can have a connector between a right angle connector between the main front panel board and the board which slots in the bottom or the top here.

Oh, and you can have two boards in here if you want top and bottom. No problems whatsoever. But yeah, that I mean that's just begging to have a nice PCB front panel on there. Of course you can get them manufactured very cheap.

You can get silk screen on there, they're easy to design and yeah, it's just great. I Think it's better preferable than a uh metal front panel like this. And of course you can get a window for an LCD screen of course, cut out there. it could just go around the outside edges of that.

And by the way, speaking of Uh LCDs the other thing is, well, how how do you cram a user interface into this thing? Well, look at this. um 8 character by two line LCD standard uh, footprint. Now it looks like it would take up. It fits right.

if you cut these tabs off. uh Bend off these tabs, it's going to fit in there. And but look how these pins here can line up with the center of that board. Why is that important? Well, I'll show you a neat trick you can use to mount these things because you know if you traditionally Mount these and then had a ribbon cable coming off, you're wasting so much space and then you got to mount it to the front thing with spaces and all that sort of jazz.

Oh horrible. Let me show you a little trick to uh re to mount this thing very nicely and very rigidly without requiring any mounting screws. Now there's two ways to do this. You can get a pin header like this and solder it on the back there and you'll notice that the pins don't stick out so they're not going to short out to the front panel because your front panel is like this and your pins aren't going to touch that at all.

So I would start by mounting a jewel in line pin header on there, soldering that in like that. and then you got two options either to use a right angle header on your board or you can put the header right on the edge of the board and then mount it like that because look this pin header As I said. well, these holes I'll just take that out. But look, those holes line up with the center of that board very nicely in there.

Look at that. Almost perfect with just enough room to spare if you cut off the tabs and that's incredibly efficient way to do it. Oh, there we go. And yeah, so what you can do is put this pin header over your board like that.

These actually fit quite nicely and you can solder your board in at right angles to your PCB Like that and that will form a very rigid mount a a very rigid Mount Like that. Of course you would have to hand solder these things, but eh, you know, so be it. But you'll end up with a very rigid LCD like that which then sticks up on its own and sticks out the front panel. Imagine this is your PCB front panel and then you wouldn't? You don't need any mounting screws or anything like that and that is just a very compact, efficient way to mount something like that LCD into this thing.

and so it' sit back like that and it would just come to the edge of the case like that so it's almost touching and then you just do a cut out in your front panel PCB And that is an incredibly efficient use of space. But there's one more benefit to this too. Now, this is actually my original micro Supply uh project. But just picture that this LCD is mounted behind this board and this board is the front panel.

Like that, it's screwed in and the LCD is like that. Well, these pins, as we showed, don't extend all the way out. They're not going to short to the front panel so you could actually if you really wanted to mount some front panel. uh, push button switches through whole ones and actually cut the pins off flush on the back.

Or maybe you'd get away with not cutting them at all, but I would Just as a matter of course, cut them flush so they don't short out to these pins on the LCD sticking through like that. So by doing that, you can stick a whole range of buttons right along the bottom there. and you can push those. Boom boom boom boom boom Like that, you can get in there, there's just enough room with your finger to push those buttons, and you can make maximum use of this tiny case like this for a user interface.

You've got an eight character by two line. LCD You can probably fit I Don't know. Five or maybe six buttons squeezed in along the back there? Yes, I don't have room for knobs If you want knobs. Well, you need a much bigger case.

and uh, you know? Well, there's Pro and cons to that. but uh. I Just like this tiny little case, and uh, it seems to be coming together quite well. It all sort of just fits together.

Sometimes you get lucky like this and you choose the right case. you know it's just the right height. The battery can fit in there, no problems at all. It just fits and off-the-shelf cheap.

Uh, readily available 2 line by8 character LCD And then you can put the buttons along the bottom. it's all working and then it's the right height to have have the uh binding Post in there and everything is just sort of coming together. Of course, something like these switches, they're not exactly pretty, right? I'll certainly admit that they aren't pretty having these on the front if you didn't want that. Hey, you could use capacitive touch switches and then have another right angle uh pin header going from your main board.

It' be surface mount on the back, but going over to the main board where you can make your connections uh to from the front panel to the main board. just like I did the capacitive switches on my Micral project. And here's my Micral project: Uh PCB with these capacitive touch buttons on the front. So look at that.

So imagine having your LCD sticking out from a cutout in your PCB just like this. I Mean here we go. It's heck. I've already got it.

Look at that. There we go Just so happens to be the right size. look at that just sticking out and then you can just have those capacitive touch buttons sitting under there like that. And of course, these Pcbs are easy and cheap to manufacture any color.

You can get different color silk screens and of course, you can get nice high resolution on your silk screen so you can uh, print buttons like this. and ah, that looks really quite nice. So these finger size buttons. I've already got a ballpark here 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, six? maybe? As I said, you probably wouldn't do that.

Maybe you can get five on there or something like that, but you can also have them um, around the other side of the LCD here as well. so there's plenty of options there to squeeze a user interface, a usable user interface, and quite versatile into a tiny little case like this. Or of course, there's always the alternative of uh, like screw mounting your regular uh, compact 53x 20 mm, uh, 160 character x 2 line LCD This one comes from my original micro watch Project so you could actually, you know, have that mounted on the front panel like that and that fits in the case fairly nicely. doesn't take up a huge amount of room they're they're sort of Fairly Cheap and readily available as well, and got twice the number of characters or something like this, but this one is bigger I Would you know? I Don't need 16 characters across to display voltage and current or something like that.

So, and they're going to have a larger Uh font as well, which is beneficial. And the options? don't stop there. You can use one of these cute little little tiny sharp memory LCD dot matrix LCDs in there if you really want to. You could sort of glue that to a cut out on the front panel and and then you've already got the flat Flex going off and then that could go off to a tiny connector in the board if you want to, just a little teeny tiny dot matrix display or you could, uh, go back to one I Was originally going to use these this on one of my original uh, micro uh Supply ones.

The good thing about this sorry, this board isn't thick enough, but you can see the pins on the bottom like that. and also the LED backlight pins like that a 1.6 mm PCB actually fits in there quite well and you can then solder those pins on that one side and then it becomes another rigid another way to rigidly right angle mount your LCD on to your PCB like that, so you know you could could easily use one of those as yet another option. So you know there's no shortage of options for displays on these kind of things. And here's this: uh, same display again, but with a blue, uh, backlight and this one already has a female header uh, solded onto there.

And yes, you could actually, uh, you know, have pin headers recessed into your board like all the way back like this and then plug in. but then you know it's not as rigid as actually directly soldering them on. but if you wanted the thing removable eh, you could do that as well and you could have it likewise. Either way, I mean you could have this soldered onto your if that's your PCB in there.

You could have that pin header soed onto your board like that both sides. so this LCD would then come along and just plug in to your PCB right angles like that or you could have it vice versa. You could have pins on here and uh, and a female header on the board there. so you don't actually have to get a right angle uh header like a right angle pin header or a right angle female header there.

You can just Mount them on that board like that and that works surprisingly well to solder both sides. It's a bit more fussy of course, but hey, it's pretty rigid and very Flex Very versatile and the options don't stop there. If you didn't like your push button uh, for example, on the front, or if you didn't want your capacitive switches like that, you could get these little rocker, uh switches. These are quite nice.

They actually work in, um, different ways. One is they actually work as a push button so you push it and that gives you an actuation of course. but then they also work as rockers side to side like that so you could right angle mount, surface mount one of these on your board. That's what they're designed to do and have it stick out the front and you have a little cut out in your front panel and you could have these little versatile rocker switches.

They're not bad at all, very low profile, but of course that's not compatible if you wanted to Mount Your PCB in there like that, you'd have to mount these somewhere else. So uh, that's a disadvantage there. You can't overlay these switches sort of like on top of your LCD like that on the front. So but I I like these things, these are quite nice.

So there you go. I Just wanted to show you these uh cases, give you a little bit of an update on the micro. Supply Yes, I'm back onto it a little bit and uh, things are changing around, but you know it's one of my pet projects I'm always playing around with and yeah, maybe I'll finish it one day. but anyway, that's just a useful uh few little useful hints there for how to, uh, sort of.

Mount user interfaces and use these nice little aluminium extruded aluminium enclosures here, which you can get dirt cheap from China these days. and well, it really is quite versatile and how you could probably pack a lot of functionality into a small front panel like that? you I think you know just a bit of clever, uh, engineering and some clever ideas go into it and you can. You'd be surprised what you can fit in such a tiny little case. So there you go.

Hope you enjoyed it. If you want to discuss it, jump on over to the EV blog Forum or leave a comment on YouTube or on EV blog.com and I usually try and respond to most of them. Catch you next time.